


Out of the Desert

by TheKnittingLady



Series: Time Trap [2]
Category: Criminal Minds, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 13:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 52,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingLady/pseuds/TheKnittingLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An open time trap is nothing but trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
> 
> \- Winston Churchill

_My name is Katherine Reid. My friends call me Kat. I am twenty five years old. I am a sophomore at George Washington University. I am married to Dr. Spencer Reid. He works for the FBI. Only my husband knows my real name._

Kat Reid took a deep breath, let it out, and repeated her mantra to herself again, adding more facts to it as she thought of them. Then she tried it again. Then she tried a third time.

It wasn't helping.

As the lights in the lecture hall went down she realized she could not stay. She couldn't do it. She gathered her notes in one arm, her bag in the other, slid out of her seat and headed up the stairs, barely managing not to run as she very nearly panicked. She made it out of the building and as far as a picnic table where she dropped everything and stopped to try to calm her racing heart.

Great, she thought, just great. Now how the hell am I going to do this? And now I feel like I'm being watched again. Yes, I know there are security cameras everywhere, but they are not specifically looking at me. But it feels like everyone is watching me. Damn it.

She pulled her phone out, as always amazed that she could tolerate owning the thing, and dialed the first and most important number in there. It rang twice then clicked and rang over again. "Hey sweetie, what's going on?" sang out a perpetually cheery female voice.

Oh crap, "Hey Penelope. They're not…"

"They're giving the profile, sweetie, he can't come to the phone unless it's really urgent. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I am. I mean…" She looked around. The academic terrace wasn't as busy as it would be in another twenty minutes when classes let out, but it wasn't completely empty either. And the sky was a lovely blue and the air soft with spring and everything was really just as all right as life in a city could be. "…I'm safe. I'm not in any danger. I'm fine."

"They why do you sound so upset?"

"I was just…I was in history and we were talking about World War Two and I didn't realize that what she had on the syllabus and I just…I just lost it. I freaked. And I don't…I'm looking at the syllabus and it's going to happen at every lecture now until the end of the semester and I need this class and I don't know how I'm going to get through this and…"

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey honey, just stop, okay. Stop and breathe, in and out. You have time. You don't have to figure this out right now, okay. Right now you just need to get home and safe and then when your hubby comes home you can figure it out from there; all right?"

Kat had been breathing through this entire speech. Little by little she felt her heart starting to slow and her nerves starting to relax, "All right. Just get home. I can do that."

"Are you going to be able to take the train?"

"No, but that's okay." It was three and a half miles. That was nothing. She started packing up her backpack.

"Oh, you are not going to walk it."

"Yeah, I think I am. I'll call when I get home." Kat sighed. Maybe she only had a family of two now, but she had the most amazing friends. "Thank you, Penelope."

"Oh, you're welcome sweetie, anytime. I'll let him know to call you when he can, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Kat started up 22nd street, heading for home. But she only made it about a mile before a dark car pulled up to the curb in front of her. A blond male head stuck out the window. "Hey chère, you need a ride?"

"Will?" Kat headed over that way. "Did Penelope call you?"

"Yeah, get in." Kat obediently slid into the back seat. The car was plain and dirty in the back and smelled like gun oil and anger to her. "Kat, have you ever met my partner Laura Nye? Laura, this here is Kat Reid, she's my son's godfather's wife."

The two women exchanged murmured greeting. "You didn't have to do this." Kat told him. "I really am fine."

"Yeah, and if you went to not fine on that walk home I'd never hear the end of it. Besides, it was on the way."

"More like two miles out of your way." Kat had to grin at the transparent lie.

Will looked back at her with an even bigger grin. "Now how do you know that?"

"You forget who I married."

"Oh, that's true." He turned back to his partner. "Reid's a map nut. He hung a framed DC street map in their stairway. Hey, did Garcia say what they were doing?"

"Giving the profile. "

"Oh good, that means they should be home in a day or so."

They listened to the dispatch radio for the rest of the short ride home. Kat sighed when they turned onto the quiet, tree lined street. "Thank you again. I just…"

"Don't worry chère. You just take care of yourself."

"I will. You too." She turned and headed up the walk to home.


	2. Chapter 2

"So what's her story?" Laura asked

"Abuse in the past," Will told her. "They don't talk about it much, but Reid met her on a trip back home. Las Vegas. Love at first sight for the both of them. Kinda like me and JJ."

"Oh. You know most women don't leave that behind."

"I know, we were worried about it, but Kat's made it go. Got into therapy, got her GED, now she's at GWU. She's doing all right. And those two are so far gone on each other it's not even funny. Two years and they're still newlyweds."

"Awww, that's nice. It's always good to hear when someone makes it out in one piece."

"Yeah, she still has her moments though; Garcia said she had a panic attack in class."

"I wonder what set it off."

Will chuckled. "You are not going to believe it."

* * *

**Police station #1  
Tulsa, OK**

**Spencer**

"Everything all right?" Hotch asked.

Spencer nodded. The one thing they were all careful of was family. All of their families bore scars one way or the other. It didn't matter if Morgan needed to turn around and run to Chicago because his sister was in a car accident or Emily's mother needed help with a friend or JJ needed to fly home because Henry was having febrile seizures, family always had to come first. Knowing that was the only thing that let them keep their heads in the game. And from the moment Kat came into his life, she was family.

On the other hand, he had yet to have to leave a case to help her. Garcia could usually help her through a crisis as well or better than he could and, if need be, Kevin or Will or someone from the support group could be deputized instead. There had only been a need for that twice in five years, and both times a phone call, a pint of ice cream and some company had solved the problem. For all Kat's issues with her past she was still a remarkably resilient woman.

And this crisis didn't need him to run home either. "It will be." He told Hotch. "Ten minutes?" When his chief nodded, he moved to a quiet corner and dialed the number Garcia just sent. "May I speak to Dr. Stern, please?" He said when the phone was answered. "It's Dr. Spencer Reid."

"Spencer!" came the familiar, professional voice on the other end of the line a moment later. "How are you?"

"Well, and yourself?"

"Not bad, not bad. So I assume this has something to do with your wife running out of my class today?"

"Yeah, I think we might need some adaptations after all."

* * *

**Connecticut Ave. northbound  
Washington DC**

**Will**

"She's terrified of television screens?" Laura asked, clearly shocked.

"Yep, they don't have one, not even a computer. Reid's got to use a laptop for work so he can put it away when he's not using it. You can see it when she's in a room with one, she starts getting twitchier and twitchier, like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. JJ started draping the blanket from the couch over ours whenever they came over; finally we just broke down and bought one of those cabinets to hold the thing. Garcia said they had a video in class today, poor thing practically ran screaming."

"How the hell does she even get out of the house? They have to be everywhere."

"Near as I can tell she sticks to specific places when she's out alone, to try to avoid them, and I know she's had therapy about not looking at them when she can't help it. Other places she goes with Reid and when they can they get up to this cabin up in the mountains where they're easier to avoid. That's why Garcia called; they have monitors up in the Metro stations so she was going to walk home."

"Which is not a good idea if you're already staving off a panic attack," Laura was quiet a moment. "How do you abuse someone with a television screen?"

"That's the one thing JJ and I never did figure out."

* * *

**Police station #1  
Tulsa, OK**

**Spencer**

Spencer heard the sigh on the other end of the phone. "Well, now I have heard everything. OK, I'm sending you the list now. Just try to watch them before the next section, and ask her to sit in the back so when she cuts out after the lecture she won't disturb the other students."

"I'll do that Susan, thank you so much."

"Sure thing."

Spencer rang off with her and then called Garcia to ask her to find copies of those videos for him. Problem solved.

* * *

**2940 Upton St #A  
Washington DC**

**Kat**

Kat sighed as she shut the door behind her. Whatever happened out there, here she was safe. Something about being home always felt safe. Nothing could get to her here. Even though this house reminded her of some awful memories, it was still better than being out there. It wasn't as good as the cabin in the woods, but it would do.

For one, there were no television screens.

For another, her bow was here.

She left her things in an untidy heap by the front door and headed upstairs to Spencer's study. Once there she opened the lock on what looked like a gun safe carefully hidden in the floor.

It wasn't.

This safe held flexible armor that no longer fit her, and a helmet that looked like the crest of a bird that did not yet exist and a sleek, black bow that invoked wings and could bring down a plane from the sky. She hadn't even looked at these objects in a long, long time. But now she reached out and lightly caressed the bow with one finger. If I ever need it, she thought, if I ever need.

Her phone chimed an incoming text.  _Problem solved. You're safe?_

Kat smiled and shut the safe before she replied.  _Yes I am. Thank you. Love you._

_Love you too, c_ ame the reply.

Yes, she thought, I am safe. I am known here. I can be myself here. There are no hidden microphones, no hidden cameras, Spencer has checked and checked again. No one has ever nearly died on the dining room table. No one has ever run screaming from this house in fear. And no rose has passed over the threshold since we came here. Not one.

Calmed and comforted at last she locked the safe, went out back, collected the dogs, and took them for a walk in a park where no mockingjays ever sang.

 


	3. Chapter 3

"OK, now, remember, you are not alone here." Garcia and Kat were sitting at the table, the older woman giving the younger all the support she could while the younger confronted her fears. Spencer watched as Garcia took Kat's hands, and the light flashed off the ring Kat wore.

Getting married had been a tricky thing. Not  _being_  married,  _getting_  married. The wedding process had been full of pitfalls.

Just over two years ago she had learned of the paper he had written, the paper that had its origin in his ordeal with Tobias Hankel years before, the paper that hopefully saved Peeta Mellark's sanity, which then gave her hope for the future, that had, in turn, kept her from her suicide attempt during the Battle of the Capitol. The paper that had created the temporal paradox that had, in theory, somehow split her being in two, leaving one in the future to finish her mission and be there for her people, and one here with him. The day after she had learned of that, that he had loved her so much, even at the beginning of their relationship, he had been willing to give her up so she could fulfill her destiny, he had gently broached the subject of marriage, if only in theory. She had, in turn, been amenable to the idea, in theory, but the thought of actually going through a wedding had been unnerving. After much discussion it turned out that Snow had so co-opted and twisted the elements of the celebration that she no longer dared to even have any opinions or desires of her own, to protect herself from even more pain.

Take the wedding dress for example. Traditionally it was a symbol of innocence and the purity of love and celebration, and it was supposed to be the most beautiful and flattering garment a woman ever wore. But for her every step along the process of getting to that dress had been riddled with humiliation and tragedy. First off, she'd had six designed for her, beautiful yes, but designed by a dear friend and fellow rebel who had been murdered in front of her eyes. And while they had been artfully done, they did not reflect the mores and customs of her community, but rather the more immodest and outlandish Capitol fashions. Then she had not even been able to choose for herself, rather the matter was put to a public vote, turning her into nothing more than a puppet to be manipulated for their entertainment, with no thoughts or opinions of her own. She had obviously not worn the final selection to her wedding but rather for a television appearance before being sent to what should have been her death, a move calculated by the rebellion to drum up outrage among the citizenry. And in the end the dress itself had somehow been transformed into a bird costume, objectifying her into their Mockingjay, the figurehead of the rebellion.

Needless to say, when Garcia suggested going dress shopping, Kat became literally ill.

The whole process was like that. Snow had insisted on a lavish ceremony and reception, to which none of her friends or family would be invited, but tickets had been offered up as game show prizes and for auction to the highest bidder before it was canceled. The ceremony itself had no religious meaning whatsoever as organized religion had been banned in the Districts for decades both as punishment for the churches' role in the rebellion and to prevent the citizenry from taking strength and sustenance from the idea of a relief from suffering someday. And all of it was being paid for by generous sponsors who experience told him would have expected to be paid back in sexual favors from the happy couple, including quite probably Kat's virginity, the one thing she had left to her at the end of it all.

Yeah. For all that JJ and Will's wedding had been intimate and romantic and perfect, if Rossi and Garcia, the romantics of the team, wanted even that much for him and Kat they were out of luck.

Thankfully the one thing that mattered to him hadn't set off any mines hidden in Kat's wounded psyche. No matter what they did he'd wanted to re-create the taking of whatever vows they took in front of a celebrant in the chapel at Bennington, so his Mother could watch. Given that Kat and his Mother had already met, and were getting along splendidly, she'd been more than willing to go along.

Along about that time Kat had been accepted to GWU, which meant she'd be spending much more time in the city. At the same time Derek Morgan had picked up a pair of semi-detached houses in a good neighborhood at an auction. He had planned to live in one and rent the other after fixing them up, but with Kat in the city the simple, utility apartment that Spencer had kept since he first came to DC would no longer do, and so he'd ended up buying the second house from Morgan. This gave them a comfortable home, and of course, a fantastic neighbor.

The next challenge had been the reception. At first he thought her use of the phrase 'toasting the couple' was an interesting eggcorn, a future historical curiosity. But it meant a lot to her, and the more he thought about it, in a way, it made sense. The couple sharing a simple meal as a celebration, preparing it for their loved ones as a thank you for their support, toastable bread being a luxury item in their District just having some would symbolize their hopes for future prosperity, and given the classic symbolism of bread as the staff of life it would symbolize fertility as well. Of course then there was the problem of how to explain such a curious tradition to the un-informed members of their team and extended family. So far they had successfully avoided discussing her past; they didn't want to invite questions now.

In the end, after much discussion and a few tears, one morning they had risen early. Kat had donned a modest, cream colored dress while he put on a new suit and with Morgan and Garcia as Best Man and Maid of Honor and the rest of the team family, they went to the Smithsonian Administrative Building, also known as the Castle. Technically the Commons could not be rented for weddings, but he knew many of the academics who worked there and he was able to beg or call in a few favors and gain access to the building before it opened for the day. They gathered at one end of the room, so like a church but onededicated to science and discovery, and exchanged simple, traditional vows. Afterward, following the customs of District 12, they were escorted by everyone back to their new home, the first time they stayed there themselves, and enjoyed a brunch put on by Rossi as a wedding gift. With toast.

After their guests had left they went upstairs and sealed their contract with older, more primal rituals, rituals that neither of them had ever shared with anyone else, rituals bound in blood and love. Rituals they had decided, jointly, to keep for this day.

Even their wedding rings symbolized the pain in her past and their ability to reconcile that into a peaceful, happy present and future. It turned out that the people in District 12 didn't exchange real rings, the crucial poverty, the constant labor and the simple lack of any for sale made spending that much money on something that had to be imported and would probably just be lost or destroyed a pointless, wasteful act. Instead they fashioned rings out of willow twigs, used them for the ceremony, and the put them away as keepsakes. While Kat did like the idea of an outward symbol of their commitment, even a simple gold band was too shiny and "Capitol" for her to accept. But he, at least, had to have a ring. While the FBI was no longer run by Hoover in many ways they were still extremely conservative and a married agent was expected to wear a ring.

In the end Garcia's shopping acumen had saved the day. They had exchanged antiqued silver rings that had been cast from willow twigs.

It was that ring, that willow twig around Kat's finger, which caught his eye as Garcia helped her calm her breathing. And just in time, because their neighbor, Morgan, was coming through the door with the dreaded object in question.

A TV set.

"Now, I am going to set this up and then we are going to watch that video for your class. And then we're going to take it apart and stash it in the closet or something so you don't have to worry about it." Garcia was telling her as she moved to the living room to get to work. "And if somehow someone does break in with a broadcast of children dying we are going to track them down and stop them. And we are all going to promise you that, right?"

"Absolutely," Morgan said.

"Yes." Spencer reached around, picked up a bowl of barley stew and brought it to his wife. "Here, this might help." For her it was comfort food. The last thing she needed was to be hungry while watching TV.

She accepted the bowl, reaching up to cup his jaw with a grateful smile. "Thank you, for all of this."

"My pleasure," he took her hand and led her to the sofa, where he could curl his arms and legs around her so she could feel better protected. And with Morgan and Garcia sharing a bowl of popcorn and Morgan's dog Clooney and their dog Mal under the coffee table, they watched TV together for the first time.

 


	4. Chapter 4

"So that was a propaganda film?" Kat asked later that evening. "It was kinda…blah."

Spencer put his book down and looked over at her. They were getting ready for bed, he was reading while she was brushing her hair over at the mirror. "Blah? The whole point of a propaganda film was to be inspiring, to encourage people to fight for the cause. It's supposed to be moving."

She paused in her brushing and looked at him. "I know, love. I was in them, remember?"

Oh. "Right, I take it yours were more exciting?"

"Well, they did have real battle footage."

"Oh?" Even now, every so often he'd learn something new, some new bit of horror from her past. But it all mattered somehow. If I had to worry about forgetting, he thought, I'd write it all down. Maybe I will anyway.

"We were in Eight, Gale and I. I was supposed to be visiting a hospital, you know, comforting the wounded? The Capitol bombed it while we were trying to leave."

Spencer made a sound of disgust. "They couldn't even stick to the Geneva Convention."

It took Kat a moment. "Right, we covered that in class. Anyway, Gale and I helped take down the bombers. Not that we were able to do enough."

Now it took him a moment, "With your bow?" He wondered why she had explosive rounds for that thing.

"Yeah," she started braiding her hair back for sleep.

He could picture her, in that remarkable armor, her bow pointed toward the sky, shooting down…airplanes? That would be…. "I bet that was a remarkable sight. Did you have a tag line?"

"Fire is catching. If we burn you burn with us." She finished and came to climb on the bed beside him.

"Memorable." And horrifying, but several therapists he had consulted with had told him that it was best to not imbue her memories with any more emotional energy. Doing so would only reinforce the trauma, it was better to acknowledge and agree that it was so very wrong, but not to get overly upset in front of her. If nothing else, it might make her shut down for fear of harming him.

"I suppose." She wasn't exactly looking at him. She was looking off into her memories.

Watching her move like that, in her soft night clothes was utterly distracting. It made everything go warm once again. Besides, she needed to take her mind off the past. He set his book aside and rolled over to look at her. "Well, I am glad you retired from film making." He leaned over and kissed the point of her shoulder. Why not. "You make a very tasty retiree." Come back to me.

"Do I?" He felt her relax, her attention shift to the present, as she caught his intent.

He kissed her collarbone, "Yes, very much so." He lightly slid his fingers under the hem of her nightshirt and bent and kissed her soft belly right above her hip.

She laughed. "That tickles." She informed him.

"A retiree with a charming laugh," he kissed her there again. "We should try to hear more of that."

"And how are you going to go about doing that?"

"Well, I've heard a theory that exposure to the prostaglandins in semen can be mood enhancing." He kissed a little higher up on her belly, lifting her shirt as she obligingly rolled over.

"Oh really?"

"Yes. In fact I know one case where someone is so sensitive they tend to break out in the giggles right after exposure." He pushed her shirt up high enough to bare the lower curves of her breasts and kept kissing his way up.

"Hmmm, we may have to try that then." That decision made she reached down and tugged him up to her lips.

* * *

 **Sonoran Desert**  
Fifty miles west-south-west of Nogales  
Mexico

The small caravan stopped in the middle of nowhere. The first and last vehicles were battered army jeeps, repurposed for private use. They each held a brace of well-armed gunsels, all part of a private army. The center car was a brand new American SUV, practically a tank, but a tank with fittings of the highest luxury.

They arrived at their destination just as the sun dropped below the horizon. The head of the small army got out of his jeep and went to knock on the passenger window. The window lowered a trifle, letting out a waft of ice cold air. "Señor Nieve, que estamos aquí."

The window was rolled up without comment.

They waited.

Thirty minutes.

An hour.

By ninety minutes the men were starting to get restless.

There was a whiff of ozone.

Another

A crackle.

The men looked around for the source.

One of them pointed out a place where the darkness seemed to be swirling somehow.

Then…a crackle of lightning erupted from it.

Another, and the men scattered to hide behind the vehicles, the rocks.

Another that tore into the night.

And then the darkness…opened.

Three men in oddly cut suits stepped through.

The sky closed behind them as if nothing had happened.

The three men walked over to the SUV. Two of them were carrying cases that were obviously heavy. The leader was carrying one that was light. They walked over to the SUV and stopped.

The driver got out of the SUV, and opened the door for Señor Nieve, the head of the organization. He stepped out of the SUV and waited. "Señor Nieve," the first of the three men said with a polite nod. Then he turned and opened one of the four heavy cases carried by his associates.

The gleam of gold was obvious, even in the moonlight.

Señor Nieve nodded and smiled. He indicated the back seat of his SUV. The two associates took the cases and slipped inside. He turned to the leader. "Y usted es?"

"Fossman. Juegocreador Fossman. Su tataranieto envía sus saludos."

With that the two men joined the others in the SUV, and the caravan drove away.


	5. Chapter 5

There is no such thing as perfect domestic bliss, Spencer thought, as he patiently tried to make the new desk clerk understand his request.

Kat's inherent frugality made enjoying some of his previous habits almost not worth the deep concern she had for the effects of the outgo. Almost. At one point, moderately annoyed with her protests, he'd challenged her to find ways to save as much as she could without compromising his standard of living or making herself a martyr. She accepted the challenge in the spirit for which it was intended, which turned out to have a beneficial effect on her adaptation to her current environment. For example, after seeing just how much he was spending in library fines every month when he had back-to-back cases she mastered the aboveground public transit system and began to seriously work with Garcia on staying calm around the screens in the Metro stations, just so she could get his books back on time when they were on a case. Total cost saved per year, almost two thousand dollars. In another example, after he took her to Starbucks one day, unfortunately the only halfway decent coffee you could get in most towns across the US, she'd been shocked to discover that he spent almost four dollars on coffee for his train ride into work every morning. This was what pushed her to master the smart phone he'd bought her. Two days later, after she had done the needed research, she presented him with a perfect cup of coffee in a reusable cup as he walked out the door. Total saved, almost a thousand dollars a year. The list just went on and on. In the end when people asked how he could afford another person at home he just had to point out that she "made" nearly twenty thousand a year, more than she would likely make at any job she was qualified for and far more than was needed to cover her expenses.

The second thorn was music. He loved classical and opera, thanks to his Mother, and also appreciated the quiet, modern form of jazz. She tolerated jazz but couldn't stand classical or opera, preferring, of all things, bluegrass and classic country, both of which irritated him to no end. Thankfully they both agreed on radio shows and books on tape for car trips and otherwise used headphones.

The third thorn in their domestic bliss had also led to a new kind of contentment. Her inability to watch TV left him with no way to keep up with  _Dr. Who_  or  _Torchwood_  or  _Star Trek_  reruns. The solution had been the evil of a tablet computer (making the rest of the team very happy) and downloads. Now he had the perfect way to relax on the plane after a case when not fleecing his teammates at cards.

The fourth thorn was a more complicated one. She hated conventions.

It was understandable. People getting dressed up in strange outfits, wandering around big, shiny spaces and ogling celebrities brought up some of the worst memories of her past. Conventions in Las Vegas were ten times worse than ones in DC, of course. Even being in Vegas was a painful reminder, the view of the Strip from a hotel room being so like the one of the future Capitol from the Training Center. It reminded her of nights counting down to her very likely demise. Thankfully Kat loved the outdoors. The desert around Vegas was a beautiful place for an experienced hiker and the nearby Colorado River held an attraction of its own. So when a con came up she would go one way and he'd go another and they would meet back up for dinner in a quiet cafe.

She also didn't mind if he brought a date, which was why Garcia was coming over to see what was wrong with the desk clerk. "What's up?"

"He's having trouble understanding that we want the TV removed from the room." Spencer replied, exasperated.

"Oh, come on. I know it's weird but it's not that hard." Garcia sighed with him.

Finally the clerk returned accompanied by the manager, "Oh, Dr Reid, of course." He always stayed here when he came out; it was a non-smoking hotel on the public transit system with no casino and so no pit bosses to give him the stink eye. "We'll have the sets out in just a few minutes. Um, this is not your usual room…"

"No, we have a guest with us." He nodded to Garcia. With  _Dr. Who_  and  _Star Trek_  cons overlapping on the same weekend it had been totally worth it to go in on a two bedroom suite and come out together. They planned to spend tomorrow at Bennington with Mom while Garcia played, and then the next three going to the cons while Kat went hiking and rafting on the river. Vacation all around.

"Ah, of course."

Business continued for a few moments, and then Spencer asked. "We had a package shipped out from DC; I was told it arrived two days ago?"

The clerk checked the computer. "Yes, sir, I'll have the bellman bring it up for you."

"Great, thank you."

Garcia frowned, "Package?"

Spencer nodded. "Given the added charges for being oversized and overweight we found it cheaper and safer to ship Kat's bow back and forth via UPS."

"Why does she need her bow? Is she going hunting?"

"No. She carries it for self defense when she's out hiking."

"Oh. It's not exactly concealable, though."

"It doesn't have to be. It's legal and more of a deterrent that way."

"And she's that good?"

Spencer smiled. "She can outshoot Morgan with his service weapon. They've gone head to head before."

Garcia blinked at that, "Jinkies."

"Well, when it's your family's only source of sustenance and income and you have to defend yourself in a survival situation, you reach expert level fairly quickly." They were finally done, and moved back into the quiet, elegant lobby where Kat had been reading and waiting for them. He dropped down beside her. "Ready?"

"Why are those men over there looking at me?" She asked, very quietly.

He glanced over at the two men by the concierge desk. Two men in business suits were, in fact, casting admiring glances her way, but there was no look of recognition on their faces. "They don't recognize you. Think about it, how could they? No, I think they're more interested in admiring your legs than anything." Her legs were on the long side for her height, finely muscled from all the walking she tended to do, and her olive skin had turned bronze thanks to her time outdoors. Given the shorts she was wearing, even in her hiking boots, in his opinion they were worth admiration. He gave the men the pointed look of relationship and made sure they could see the ring on his finger and they backed down. "I'm afraid you're rather attractive, that tends to happen."

"My luck, right?"

"Oh, stop it." Garcia admonished her. "Come on; let's go up, I want to go play in Vegas!"

They both laughed. "You get to go play, Garcia." Spencer reminded her as they moved to the elevators. "I'm going to go visit Mom."

They chatted all the way upstairs and to the suite, only to find the workmen removing the television screens. "You can leave the one in the room with the sitting area." He told them. "I assume that will work for you Garcia, they have the same sized beds."

"Perfect, perfect! Oh, this is heavenly!" Garcia cooed as she checked out the room.

"Yes, it is." Kat murmured in agreement as the two sets were removed from the room. She wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled into his collarbone. "It's always so wonderful to know that I don't have to watch."

"Even though nothing scary will come on?"

"Even though. Still." But when she looked up there was nothing but love and happiness in those grey eyes. It had taken a lot of effort to get there, but he was so gratified to see it now.

"Awww." Garcia smiled at the two of them for a moment, and then bounced off. "Okay, time to play!"

"And I'm going to call Dr. Norman and go see Mom." As much as his Mom and Kat got along Mom always enjoyed spending that first afternoon of a visit just Mother and son, like they had been for so long. He'd wrapped his arms around Kat's waist when she came to him, so now it was easy to gently tug her braid, a signal they had come up with long ago that was probably no longer needed, but one they still shared. "You take care of yourself?"

She looked up at him again and smiled. "All right."

 


	6. Chapter 6

Take care of yourself. Take care of yourself. Such simple words and yet so hard to learn to do.

Kat settled into the chair in their bedroom and watched the sun set over the desert. This place reminded her so much of the Training Center. The impersonal luxury, the lack of any need to do anything meaningful, even the view of a bright, candy colored city was so very similar. Her first night here she had still been disoriented from her trip, many times she'd looked at the window and sworn she was back in the Capitol, a prisoner. Believe that she couldn't leave was the only thing that kept her here, and quite probably saved her life.

Her second trip had been more problematic. She hadn't been disassociating enough to not feel the fear that always went along with being in the Training Center.

Take care of yourself.

That was the problem, they had said back then. Once the crisis is over, especially when it had gone on for so long, you slowly start to feel again. And that can be terrifying. That was part of what disabled the Victors, of all things, that it was, in the main, over. They had survived, but with just enough reminders to not be able to let it go, which meant that they finally slowed down enough to feel the damage from growing up in a District. And they couldn't cope.

Haymitch was a prime example. Once he became a Victor he no longer had to worry about survival. He had food, good clothing, a warm house, even the luxury of hot, running water. He had nothing to do but think and feel, with regular trips to the Capitol to watch children die and try to sell their bodies in the hopes of keeping them alive long enough to pay the debt. Was it any surprise that he'd found solace in a bottle? Or that other Victors had as well? Or had taken comfort in a vial of morphling? It was that or suffer the miseries that crawled out of your head through your skin now that you had nothing as urgent to distract you.

And she'd noticed. After about three months of living at the cabin, a home so much closer to the home she'd grown in but with just enough extras (Gas stove! Hot running water! Reliable electricity!) to be almost luxurious she'd started feeling the symptoms. She slept less and less, couldn't concentrate, lost her hunter's focus. Her stomach had started giving her problems. She started aching just about everywhere. Her monthly cycles, never reliable, simply stopped. And more and more it seemed like there was this heavy blanket draped over her all the time, keeping her from even wanting to move. About the only thing that made her feel better was being in the woods, soaking in sunlight and greenery and at least trying to hunt.

And then winter had set in. She'd moved to the city so as not to be stuck. The fast moving, so very Capitol like city. He'd come home from his next case to find that she'd spent the three days he'd been gone in bed.

First Spencer and Penelope had taken her to a very elaborate doctor who had very elaborately told her that growing up in a prison camp, very nearly starving to death, having been 'abandoned' by her parents, having to care for her sister at such a young age, having the constant threat of death over her head, fighting in two Games, and so on had collectively broken her growing body. He had then rambled on about something called hormones, the HPA axis, PTSD, how this test had been too low and that too high and that too flat and so on and thank goodness Spencer was as bright as he was because she hadn't been following any of it. She did pick up that some people tried to treat it with alcohol or something called opiates, which made you feel better, but made you sicker at the same time. It kind of explained Haymitch, at least in part.

The doctor had then offered her several kinds of pills, all of which were supposed to make her feel wonderful, all of which came with the strict rule of not being able to stop taking them, at least not all at once. For someone who'd been raised with chronic shortages of things as basic as food and clean water, being told that your life would now depend on something that could be cut off at any time was unacceptable. She'd told him what to go do with his pills. Thankfully Spencer understood and agreed with her.

Instead he and Penelope had retreated to their computers and come back with a plan. It started with avoiding "stress" of any kind. That meant talking a lot about what life had been like back in District 12 and through the games and the rebellion, especially with Penelope, and then avoiding anything that brought up negative reminders. It meant going to bed at the same time every night and resting every afternoon and walking the dogs twice a day when she wasn't in the woods. It even meant doing the same thing before bed every day, and when she got up, and on specific days if possible. It meant watching what she ate, lots of meats and vegetables, very few sweets, and eating every couple of hours so she'd never actually be hungry. And Penelope had come up with a tea that her mother could have brewed, licorice root, ginseng, St. John's Wort, milk vetch, a specific kind of skull cap, all of which seemed to help. It even meant trying to teach her body to actually relax, starting with some kind of silly stretches, which actually felt good, and then sitting and focusing on breathing, which felt silly. They'd tried many different ways to help her learn to focus without stress, and finally settled on knitting, just like her mother. As it turned out it wasn't just about making hats. Well, it was also about making hats. At least you were doing something useful while sitting.

Travel, unfortunately, screwed the whole thing royally. That much had been obvious to her before their first trip.

Not so, Spencer had insisted. Travel just took it's own system.

Acceptance that travel was difficult and unpredictable but that it would be over within a specific time range. Bring your knitting to help you focus and stay calm. Drink enough water and eat something healthy so as not to add that stress. When they arrived do some of that yoga-stretching stuff, take a warm bath, have something to eat, and finally rest to let your body relax again.

And balance was found.

She was utterly lucky to have had people who cared enough about her to teach her how to take care of herself. She was lucky to have friends, and love.

As she watched the night sky creep over the desert she had to smile. Yes, this place was a lot like the Training Center. But this time the odds were firmly in her favor.

**The Mojave desert  
Outside Las Vegas**

**Spencer**

"Ohhhh. Myyyy. Gawwwwdddd."

Spencer smiled at the sound of Garcia's voice as she got out of the SUV. Yes, she was a little tipsy, but not so much that she couldn't enjoy it. He closed the driver's side door as Kat slid out of the back seat. "I still can't believe you've never seen the stars outside of a city before." He said.

"Oh I am a devoted urban girl, surely you know that. But this…" Garcia spun around slowly, her eyes on the carpet of stars above her head. "I bet if we look long enough we can see the Tardis fly by."

Spencer and Kat chuckled. "That wouldn't surprise me." Spencer told her. He reached over to Kat and tugged her into his arms. She still smelled warm from her hike that day, like desert herbs and sun warmed skin. It was sweet just to hold her.

And then something intruded on the soft scent of herbs and skin. Ozone.

He was imagining things. He buried his nose in Kat's neck.

"Is that the North Star? Which one is the North Star?" Garcia asked.

The scent of ozone came again.

"No, that's south, Garcia."

"Oh god, how do you not get turned around out here?"

Something crackled.

"Did you hear that?" Kat asked.

There was a flash of lightning, from not that far away.

Garcia jumped and turned. "What was that?"

Spencer looked just south east of where he parked, the same place he always parked when he came out here. And there in the night the darkness appeared to be gathering. Lightning flashed , illuminating the swirling night. "It's the time trap! Someone must have triggered it!"

"I thought you stopped that?" Garcia ran back to the car as best she could on kitten heels.

"I stopped Kat from going through it. If the battle was still on then it could have been activated. Someone else could have fallen into it." Garcia and Kat both ran behind the SUV as lightening came out of the disturbed place in space.

"Who?" Garcia called to him.

"I don't know! It could be anyone. Another rebel soldier…"

"Or a Peacekeeper." Kat was back at his side, only now she had her bow loaded and ready.

He grabbed it to throw off her aim. "You don't know that!" More lightening crackled from the hole.

"Neither do you!" She replied, but she did lower her bow. "If they see me and start shooting I plan to defend myself and you!"

"Only if they shoot first!" But she also had a point. He drew his weapon just in case.

With a last, fierce crackle the hole opened. And a figure fell through.

The hole closed immediately behind…her.

"Oh. My. God." Garcia breathed after a moment. "It...happened. Just like you said. Someone…fell through…time." Spencer couldn't tell if it was excitement or shock but Garcia was so a flutter that for a moment she lost the power of speech.

The woman tottered around in a slow circle, until her eyes lit on the small group by the vehicle. "What the fu…" was as far as she got before she collapsed.

Spencer put his weapon away. "Bring the lantern from the back." He called to Garcia as he and Kat ran over to the body. Kat covered him while he checked for a pulse. "She's alive."

Garcia brought the lantern and held it up. "Um, I don't think she's a soldier." She said, as they took in the woman's sparkly blue high heels, bright purple tights, and green fur coat, her skirt barely existent under it. "Do they have prostitutes in the future?"

She seemed to be in one piece, just unconscious as Kat had been. Spencer took her shoulders and hip and gently rolled the newcomer onto her back, revealing her to be in her early 30's, with pale skin and short, spiky black hair and a top that was literally see through.

"I don't know." Kat was replying to Garcia. "I never…" Kat slowly lowered her bow as her jaw fell to the desert floor. "Mason?"


	7. Chapter 7

"You know her?" Spencer blinked as he looked from his wife to the woman on the ground. What were the chances?

"Uh…yeah. Johanna Mason. We were…she's…she…" Kat was clearly and understandably still in shock. "She's a…friend."

"Are you sure it's her?"

"Oh yeah. Same face, same hair, same…breasts."

"Sparky?" The woman on the ground…Johanna…was stirring. Her first move was to put up a hand to shield her eyes from the light. "What the hell are you doing here? Are you trying to get your ass arrested? Wait…" She lay back and looked up. "Where the hell are we?"

"Don't call me that." Kat replied automatically. Then she chuckled. "Not where you think we are."

"How did she know it was Kat?" Garcia asked Spencer.

Asked Spencer but Johanna answered. "Well who the hell else would hold down on someone with a bow and arrow? I mean other than Hawthorn but he's a shit ton taller and lacks tits."

Spencer slowly turned to his wife. "Let me guess, fellow veteran?"

"Among other things," Kat replied.

When he turned back Johanna was struggling to get up. "Whoa." Not a good plan. She grabbed hold of Spencer for support as she wavered. "Okay, where did it go?" She started patting her clothes and the ground around her. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?" Kat asked.

"My stuff," she kept looking, growing more and more frantic. "No. No, no. No. No, where did it go? No."

Spencer observed Johanna's behavior and considered. Before she lost a substantial chunk of her memory Kat had told him that the Time Trap had been located at the end of a small back alley, the kind of place that soldiers might retreat to in a battle. When they did one of them would disappear, only to land in the middle of an unforgiving desert, eight hundred miles and nearly three hundred years from home and help. Odds were they would die of heat and dehydration, a slow, painful way to die, the sort of thing a sadist like Snow would enjoy. But Johanna wasn't dressed like a soldier, and she wasn't acting like a soldier. Granted she might be acting like a veteran with a bad case of PTSD who... When Johanna got up to look around Spencer saw that she only had one arm in her coat, that pretty well confirmed his suspicions. But still, he turned and looked back at his wife, "Fellow Victor?"

"Yeah," Kat confirmed, "Twice, among other things." He heard his wife sigh quietly. "She saved my life."

Well, hell. His attention went back to Johanna as she fell to her knees and covered her face, the better to howl out her anger and frustration. This is going to suck, he thought. "Come on." He went to take Johanna's arm and get her to her feet, "Back to the hotel."

She started pushing at him. "No! No, it's got to be here! It's got to..."

"Stop," he shook her, and not that gently either. He knew what he had to do; he could only hope she would want it. "We can get more."

"You don't know…"

"Yes. I do." Spencer sighed. "Get in the car."

**The Signature at the MGM grand  
Las Vegas, NV**

Getting Johanna back to the hotel had been no easy feat. She was already shivering, even in the warm desert night, and she was having trouble walking straight. Thankfully each of the Signature's towers had its own, private lobby and a discreet staff. He led the three women through the same side entrance where he had taken a girl in armor five years before. It would look like they were bringing home a very drunk friend. Which is not too far off, Spencer thought.

While they were in the elevator, something that had they had become aware of in the SUV grew until it was impossible to avoid. Johanna smelled; seriously smelled. Like she never bathed and tried to cover it up with scents smelled. Garcia just looked at Spencer in astonishment. "I am thinking less and less of the future every day."

Johanna finally came to enough to realize her surroundings. "Where the fuck are we anyway?"

Kat laughed. "Jo, when I tell you, you will not believe it. Come on."

They got her down to the hotel room. Kat kind of folded her into the sofa. As Spencer had expected she immediately yawned and reached for the box of tissues on the end table to blow her nose and blot her eyes. Her make-up was not holding up well. They didn't have much time. "Garcia." She was not going to like this. "I'm sorry to ruin your vacation."

"What ruin? This is not ruin, I just saw someone fall through a hole in time! That is, like, a bazillion times better than even meeting David Tennant!"

Jo looked over at Kat, "Hole through time?"

Kat nodded. "One of Snow's booby traps."

"Oh." Jo frowned. "I thought Volts fixed all of those."

"He must have missed one. Were there more of them?"

"I don't know. Ask Volts."

Spencer sighed. "No, I meant the rest of your vacation." They were supposed to have two more days in Vegas. "I need you to pack up, head to McCarran and get on the next plane to DC. I'll cover the cost."

"What?" Garcia was shocked. "Ohhh no, I am not leaving you here to deal with this on your own."

"So how are you here, wherever the hell here is? The last I saw you, you were in 12 playing house with Mellark." Jo asked Kat. She looked down at the younger woman's legs. "And where are all your scars?"

"I fell through the same trap." Kat told her, "In the Battle of the Capitol. Then Spencer created something called a temporal paradox so I could go back and kill Snow. So I didn't go through the trap, which must have left it open." Kat paused a moment. "Did I kill Snow?"

"Not exactly, but he's dead anyway." Jo told her. "The war ended five years ago. What's a temporal paradox?"

Kat thought about it a moment. "I'm not sure. I think maybe if you put Beetee and Wiress together you might get enough brain power to understand it. What scars?"

"Oh, well fuck." Jo gave it up right there. "Coin blew you up."

Kat considered that a moment. "You know I never did trust her."

"Good instincts. You did kill her by the way. Snow laughed himself to death over it. Literally."

Kat nodded. "Good to know."

"Garcia, I'm about to go break several major laws. If I get caught tonight we could all go to jail. And even if I don't, if Strauss gets wind of this she'd fire us both."

"In that case I am definitely not leaving. You are not doing this on your own, no way." Garcia replied.

Spencer sighed. He was running against a clock here, and fighting with Garcia took way too much time. "All right, but I warned you. I think I saw one of the maids in the hall, would you go get us a stack of extra towels and an extra set of bedding, please?"

"That I will do, back in a tick," Garcia turned on her heel and was out the door.

I love her like a sister, Spencer thought, but there are some things I really don't want her to see. Granted I might not be able to avoid it tonight. He turned to the sofa and sat on the ottoman in front of Jo. "I have one question." He said as soon as he held her attention. "What are you on?"

"What?" Kat asked.

"How the fuck do you know?" Jo asked. "And who the hell are you?"

Without another word he reached over, took her arm and shoved up her sleeve, revealing the nest of red scars he knew he'd find there. Then he rolled up his own sleeve to reveal his own well faded ones. "My name is Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm Kat's husband."

Jo's eyes went wide in recognition. "Oh. Well, that explains it." She nodded, "Morphling, had my last shot too damn long ago." She looked up at the younger women. "You get all the good ones, don't you?"

Spencer looked over at Kat. "Let me guess, it's a potent pain medication with a high addiction potential."

Kat nodded. "She's not the first Victor like this. How did you know?"

"It's an eggcorn, a linguistic term. We call it morphine." He looked back over to Jo. "Do you want to get clean?" Please say yes, he thought. I don't know what I'll do if you don't say yes.

Jo just looked at him for a long moment, then chuckled. "Why the hell not?" she said at last. "You fixed Mellark; you can fix me if anyone can. And getting my shit together would be the ultimate fuck you."

"Yes it would." Whatever motivation worked. Of course Garcia came in the door just as he was leaving his badge on the counter. He shook his head at her look. "I told you. See if you can help her get cleaned up. I'll be back." He headed out into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

Once Spencer left Kat got up and gave Jo a tug. "Come on, brainless, I'll show you where the bathtub is."

Jo did not move. "No." She said after a long moment.

"Why not? I mean it's not a Training Center shower but the water stays hot at long as you want."

"No." Jo said again, quietly. She pulled her knees up to her chin and just curled into a ball.

"Mason, you smell like a whorehouse after Peacekeeper Appreciation Day. Come on."

Garcia gently touched Kat's elbow. "Hey, stop. Look at her." She nodded to Jo. "Look at her body language, she's terrified." She went to sit next to the frightened woman. "Hey, we haven't met yet. My name's Penelope Garcia. I'm a friend of Kat's. You can call me Penelope or Garcia or Penny or, well, anything you want, okay?" She waited for Jo's nod. "Now you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, not ever again, all right? You're safe here."

At that Jo looked at her and let out a harsh, braying laugh. "Bull. Shit."

Garcia just smiled. She could see the pain behind that, you didn't need to be a full fledged profiler for that.. "Yeah, I know. It took Kat a good two years to believe it. I know it's going to take a long time for you to really trust us, and that's okay. All I hope you can do is give us a chance. Just, in some small way, and let us earn it."

Jo turned to Kat. "She talks a good game. They give you the same speech?"

Kat chuckled, "Didn't have to. Spencer saved my ass from Snow about, what, three times in the first week I was here. We worked out from there."

Jo blotted her face and yawned again. "So how did this work? There's one of you here and one of you in the future?"

"Near as we can tell. I don't remember anything past….oh, you guys were just back, and I went to 2 where they were trying to figure out how to break the Nut…"

"Right about when Prim figured out how to fix Mellark, with the help of the doc there, some paper he wrote. The tacky romantic drama continues."

Kat chuckled again. "It does. I guess that stopped me from doing something really stupid. How I managed to stay here and be there is the paradox part."

"Yeah, I'm not even going to ask." Jo finally turned to Garcia. "What the hell. It's not like you two can fuck me up any further. I'll go get cleaned up at least."

Garcia nodded. She could already tell that control over this situation was going to be tentative and tricky at best. Oh why did Reid have to leave right now? "Sure. Sure, it's right in there and we have towels and there's soap and everything you could need."

Jo unfolded herself and managed to get to her feet. She wasn't steady, but she was on her feet. Idly she reached down and picked up Spencer's badge. "So what's so important about this?"

"Oh, we work for the FBI." Garcia told her. "The Federal…"

"They're Peacekeepers." Kat interrupted. "Or what will become Peacekeepers."

Jo's eyes lit as she smiled something slow and deliberate and wicked. "So in the future you marry Mellark and live happily ever after. In the past you had to settle for being some junkie Peacekeeper's doxy? You're slumming sparky."

Kat didn't reply to that. Instead she backhanded Jo across the face.

Garcia yelped. "Wait! No! Stop! Oh my god, no hitting! No hitting!" Ohhhh this could not be falling apart this fast.

Jo, however, just started chuckling. "Nice to see they haven't hijacked you, brainless." She said, wiping a trickle of blood from her lips. She looked over at Garcia. "If she starts squeaking about manners and schedules I'm staying high."

Kat started laughing right along with her. "Go get cleaned up Mason, I am not sharing a train compartment with you in your current state. I'll get you some clothes."

"Good, these are not the ones I'd choose for traveling through time." Jo calmly started peeling out of her clothing, and only laughed harder when Kat looked away, "Yep, same old sparky. Did the Doc even pop your cherry yet?"

"I am so not answering that." Kat replied.

"That's all right. Mellark got your other one, he told me." Naked as the day she was born Jo sauntered off to the bathroom.

Garcia's jaw had not left the floor since the whole thing started. She turned to Kat who was doing a deep breathing exercise to calm her system. "Wow. She is just… What happened to her?"

"A lot. A lot more than what I went through. At least I had a Mentor looking out for me, she didn't even have that. She was asking for that, you know. Deliberately." Kat breathed in and out for another few moments before heading to her bedroom for clothes. "She's always been a smart, snarky bitch. I think that's her base personality."

"Oh, great," Garcia sighed. "So you're saying you were the healthy one."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Groovy." They had their work cut out for them. "You said she saved your life?"

Kat held up her arm. On the inside of her forearm there was a jagged raised scar the size of a small apple. "She gave me this. When you're in the Arena they put a tracker in your arm so they can follow your movements. She knew we were about to be rescued so she pulled it out for me. Then she led the two people hunting us away from the rendezvous point so they wouldn't kill me, even though she knew she'd be captured. She's a good person, Penelope, just an irritating one."

"Yeah, but how much of that is personality and how much of that is what she's gone through?"

"I don't know."

**Industrial Area  
Rodeo Municipality  
Mexico**

Capitán Víctor Navarro took a slow walk around the crime scene. This was the third and largest one they had seen in the past six months, each time an escalation.

The first had been in a warehouse in Hermosillo. They thought it was drug violence at first. Five men, a pile of weapons in the center, blood everywhere. But then, as he looked at the crime scene notes, things began to stand out. There were no guns involved, for one. None in the pile, none used on the victims. That was unusual for a drug related crime. And, as it turned out, all the men had murdered each other, there was no one killer. And the owner of one set of prints was missing.

A month later it was a farm outside Cuauhtémoc City. Eleven bodies, this time six of them female. There was some evidence that the farm had been enclosed with an electrified fence, that the fighting may have gone on for more than one day. The victims ran and hid and hunted each other with bladed weapons and whatever they could improvise. Some of the victims had been raped as well. And again, one set of fingerprints did not have an owner.

Now this was the third, an abandoned factory, the biggest yet. Fifteen bodies, at least three days, and this time one more male than female. And what was stranger, two had been identified as Jamaican, two as Chinese…and two were American.

Well, at least he knew who to call.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Kat tapped lightly on the bathroom door before opening it a crack. "I have clothes."

"Get in here, Sparky." Was Jo's reply.

"Don't call me that." Kat came in, and found Jo standing on a towel, all but shaking as she gave herself a sponge bath. "You okay?" She asked as she put the clothes down.

"No. Snow. Fuck." She scrubbed at one armpit, quickly, before drying it off. "I used to love the fucking rain."

"You can get the rain back. You can get whatever you want back. I've been learning that." Kat left the clothes on a dry part of the counter and sat on the vanity stool, her back to her friend. Now she knew enough to understand why Jo didn't have any modestly left, and she ached for her. "You too, huh?"

"Bullshit." Jo sniffed, blew her nose. "Me too what?"

"No hair left."

"Nope. Let me guess, they soaked you in a tub of stinky goo before your Victory tour?"

"Yeah. That's what did it, huh?"

"Yep. Preparation for your next career." Jo said that with a leer.

Kat decided not to take the bait. "According to Garcia even making us strip down for our Prep teams was a violation. We were just kids; they shouldn't have done that to us."

Jo just turned her head to look at her friend. "Oh brainless, you have no clue what they would have done to you if Haymitch hadn't been looking out for you."

Kat decided that deliberately avoiding offers might work here, the better to not throw Jo on guard. "So is this where I say thank you?"

Jo chuckled. "You're welcome, brainless." She blew her nose again. "So what's the past like?"

"It's weird. It's like you can see little bits of the Capitol mixed in with little bits of normal and then a whole lot of stuff we all forgot. But the people are great; they haven't all been torn apart into us versus them yet. It's nice to be able to just…not worry about it anymore. To have a life." She was quiet a moment. "You know there's no way to go back, right?"

"Figured. It's not like I had anyone to leave. You did, though. Funny you haven't asked yet."

"I thought I'd never see them again. I mourned them all for dead."

She spotted Jo's eyes in the mirror. The older women nodded. "Good enough. So what's that husband of yours like? Other than stupid smart."

Kat smiled that secret smile again. "Well, smarter than Beetee, as crafty as Haymitch, as strong as Gale in his own way, and as kind and gentle as Peeta. Well, as Peeta was before Snow got to him."

"You don't remember him getting better?"

"No. Did he?"

"Mostly, thanks to that husband of yours. You two are doing all right in the future, more or less."

Now it was Kat's turn to nod. "Good enough."

There was a long pause before Jo asked, "So, was it good for you?"

"Was what good for me?"

"When that husband of yours popped your cherry?"

Kat groaned. "Jo!"

"'Cause you know, I never did get around to asking you. Well, the other you, but given the way Mellark worships you he would have had to have been at least nice about it." There was the sound of scrubbing. "So, was he?"

Sigh. "Yes, he was wonderful. Is wonderful." Kat knew why her friend was asking, but she didn't want her to know that she knew, not yet. Her smile grew a little wicked. "And we waited until we were married, three years after I got here."

And now it was Jo's turn to groan. "Oh Sparky, you're making my teeth ache." She thought a moment, "Why so long?"

"I spent two years mourning Peeta." Kat admitted after a moment. "And then another year to be sure."

Jo met her eyes again and smiled. "Good enough."

* * *

**Spencer**

It wasn't that long before Jo came out of the bathroom. With her make-up scrubbed off she looked a lot younger, and a lot more tired. She hadn't really washed her hair at all, but she smelled like soap, so she must have done something. And in a pair of Kat's shorts and a tank top it was easy to see the scars. It was also easy to see that her eyes were streaming and that she kept blotting her nose. "Is your hubby back yet?" She asked Kat.

"Not yet. I don't know how long he'll be gone."

"Is there anything to eat?"

"Yeah. This place is kind of like the Training Center, you call down, ask for something on the list and they send it up. Thankfully not by Avox." Kat found the room service menu and passed it over.

"Good. You live here?"

"Nope. This is Spencer's home, um, District; we come here to visit his Mom. We actually live in the old Capitol part of the time, and part of the time in what will be 12." Kat smiled at her, that shy smile she tended to reserve for family. "You'll like the Cabin, it's in the woods."

Jo gave her a small, shy smile in return. "Haven't seen the woods in a while. I never did go back home."

"Well, now you are. Something they said to me when I got here. It's time to stand down, Soldier, you've done enough."

Just then the door opened. Spencer walked in and deliberately left his shoes by the door. "How are you feeling?" He asked Jo.

"Coming down." She replied. "Doesn't hurt yet, but it will."

"Do you still want to get clean?"

She was quiet a moment, then she looked over at Kat. "Yeah, I think I do."

"How much have you been using and how much do you weigh?" She told him. Assuming the morphine potency held standard, Spencer ran a quick calculation in his head. Then he pulled a small bottle and the works he needed from his pocket and started drawing up the dose.

Jo turned to chuckle at Kat. "Okay, now I like him." She sat at the table with Spencer and offered her arm. "I thought I was getting off the drugs."

"I can help with the mechanics but staying clean is going to be up to you. I just don't want you to detox on the train." As soon as he had the dose drawn up he passed her what she needed. "That's a tapered dose, not a full one. Trust me; it'll make it easier if you start cutting back."

"Voice of experience?" She purred.

"Don't make me hit you again." Kat told her.

Spencer just nodded. No, he was not going to watch her do this, not because it was tempting, but because it was so repellant now. He looked away only to see Garcia's face. "What?" He asked gently.

"I just…it's just…I mean we always suspected, but we never….it's just…it really happened?"

Spencer sighed and nodded. "I didn't want anyone to have to lie to Strauss."

"I know. I guess…I never pictured my junior G-man scoring drugs."

Hell, he really hadn't wanted to upset her. "Ten years, one month and nineteen days. If it's any help."

Well, that put a smile back on her face. "It is, a lot." She came over and hugged him. "That's something to be proud of."

"I have other things these days." Namely the woman who was bringing him a mug of tea. When Kat got close enough he tugged her down into his lap just so he could hold her and see her smile.

"You don't let up, do you Sparky?" Jo asked, her words already slurring a bit.

"You're just jealous Mason." Kat replied.

"Yes. Yes, I am."

 


	10. Chapter 10

"You know, you really didn't have to be here." Garcia told him.

"Yes, I did." Morgan replied. He'd been worried for the past three days, ever since Garcia came back early from her trip to Vegas without Reid or Kat and with a crazy story to tell. "If there's another of these time travelers out there I want to see it for myself."

"Her. It is a her and it is a her with a lot of pain in her life. And she is a friend of Kat's and a veteran and she's been in those horrific game things so be nice."

"I intend to be nice, I just want to know why Reid wanted all of this stuff is all."

Garcia sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

Morgan shook his head. "You should know me better than that."

Before Garcia could tell him, the SUV they left at the Culpeper train station pulled in. His dog, Clooney, a fine mutt, stayed beside him but Mal, a field-bred English springer spaniel, went bounding over as soon as the car stopped to greet his mistress. Mal more or less tolerated Reid or at least he'd stopped growling every time Reid got too close. Reid ignored the wild greeting going on. "Hey." He called over to Morgan. "What are you doing here?"

"That's what I was going to ask you." Morgan replied. "Garcia said someone else fell through the hole."

"Yeah, turned out to be a friend of Kat's."

"Coincidence?" Morgan wanted to know.

"Um, not as much as you might think."

Just then someone unfolded out of the back seat where she had been lying down, and made her way out of the car. She was of average height, pale, short dark hair, that thin build that spoke of undernourishment back when she was a kid. Her walk was slow and unsteady and he didn't have to have been a cop once to see that she was high.

"Derek Morgan." Kat said by way of an introduction. "Johanna Mason."

After too long a moment Johanna turned to look back at her friend. When she turned back it was clear to him that her armor was up, and it was all kinds of thick. She reached out and tugged his shirt out of his pants, lifting it up to take a look at his abs, then she smirked back at Kat before letting it go and walking right on past him without saying a word. Morgan turned to Reid and waited for him to start talking.

"Johanna Mason." Reid started. "Approximately 30, from what they called District 7, which included parts of Oregon, Washington and British Colombia. She was the victor in the sixty-ninth games and a tribute in the 75th Quarter Quell, whatever that was; admits to killing seven people between the two. Also apparently a rebel who trained for the military although she didn't go to war like Kat did. And, according to Kat, she spent some time as a POW, but she doesn't have any details. No family back home, never married, no kids; also a strong case of PTSD which she has been self-treating with opiates."

That was it. Morgan nodded. "That's why the stop at Costco for all that stuff. Garcia's not the only one who can handle a computer, I looked up the list."

"Yes. So, not so much a coincidence, the incidence of addiction would be expected to be higher for survivors of the Games, and a back alley is a good place to both score drugs and to hide while you use them." Reid sighed. "Ten years, one month and twenty-two days, just so you know."

"Good. That's good. So you think you can get her off of them?"

"You can't get someone clean if they don't want to get clean, but it appears that she does. I think the shock of falling through time and seeing how well Kat is doing is making her willing to try. Also having the offer of support, it sounds like she didn't have anyone to support her after the war ended. That said, I can at least help her with the mechanical end of withdrawal. After that it really is one day at a time."

"Good." Morgan watched as Kat went to join her friend at the edge of the woods. "Yeah, that's good."

**Kat**

Kat wandered over to where Jo was standing; put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "So what was all that about?"

"Nothing, I don't know." Jo looked around and gave her a smile that so sad. She was almost in tears. "He's as pretty as Finn, you know."

"What happened to Finnick, anyway?"

"He died." Jo sighed. She turned back to the woods, "In the Battle of the Capitol. Some of Snow's mutts ate him alive."

Kat felt that like a soft punch in a place that almost hurt. Finnick had kept her sane while the people they loved were held captive. He'd saved Peeta's life in the Arena. And after…. "What about Annie?"

"She was okay. She got to keep a part of him." Kat turned to her and smiled again. "She had Finn's son. Your Mom was looking after them."

"That's good." That also explained at least part of it.

Jo was quiet a long time. "Finn was the only one who ever really understood, you know? I mean, there were others, from One especially, but that's not…" Jo sighed. "I don't know that I can do this."

"If you don't try Snow wins."

"I know. Fuck." Jo sniffed and wiped her eyes. "These woods are all wrong."

"Yeah, but they're still woods. They have trees." Kat put her arm around Jo's shoulder. "When you're better we can go hunting together. I'll show you how to set snares. You can chop up all the firewood you want."

Jo grinned at her. "Fuck you, Sparky."

"Fuck you twice, you need it more."

Jo shuddered. "No, I don't." She looked back over at Morgan, who was helping Spencer take the bags in. "Finn's the only one who was ever good to me, you know. I wonder what he's like."

Kat chuckled. "Get clean and find out. I know he won't be put off by anything you tell him. They fight monsters; they know what they can do. They're not afraid of it."

Jo turned to look at her. "Serious?" It was a question, a whisper of hope.

"Serious." Kat replied, just as quiet.

Jo didn't say anything. She just hugged her a little, and then wandered into the house.


	11. Chapter 11

Food for a week, check. Dog food, check. Meal replacement shakes, check. Electrolyte solution, check. Anti-Diarrhea meds, check. Vitamin and minerals supplements, check. Anti-histamines to use as sleep aids, check. OTC anti-inflammatory muscle relaxant, check. Cleaning supplies, check. Extra toiletries, check. Extra sheets and towels, check. Coffee, lots of coffee, check. Buckets, check….

Spencer went down the checklist Ethan had sent him, everything you needed to get someone through the physical withdrawal off opiates. It was weird, at least it was for him, he really didn't remember that week. "I've never had this big of a gap in my memory before." He told Garcia.

"That's probably a good thing." She replied. "So, you have everything?"

"I think we do. You know, you don't have to stay."

"I actually wasn't planning on it." She told him. "Morgan's going to stay, more or less, to run back and forth if you need it, but if you need anything from the city I'm a phone call, you know."

"I know. Did I ever tell you how grateful I am for everything you've done?"

"Awww, you're welcome sweetie. It's family." She put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him tight.

He returned the hug, and then looked over at Kat as she came in. "I think we have everything." He told her.

"Not quite." She replied. "These need to go in someone's trunk." She held up the ax and the hatchet they used to cut firewood.

Jo, who had been drifting between the sofa and the table, watching the goings on, perked up at this. "Oh fuck no, brainless." She protested, "No way."

"Yes way." Kat replied as Morgan took the tools and headed out to his car. "If Spencer is right you're about to become ten times the bitch you usually are, I am not going to leave you armed."

"Oh, no. You don't…I can't…fuck." Jo ran her fingers through her hair and hung on tight. "You cannot expect…"

"Brainless, no one is going to get to us here. And the guys have guns. Peacekeepers, remember?"

"That is not the same…"

"And look." Kat had pulled a case up onto the table, one that Morgan had brought up from the city with him. Now she opened it so Jo could see the hunting bow inside.

Jo looked and let out a deep breath as she lightly touched the carving on the riser. "Grizzly, huh? Kinda suits you."

"So I've been told." She closed the case on her weapon and put it back on the floor against the wall. "I've got your back, Mason." She told her. "I won't let anyone get to you. We'll get you what you want when this is over."

Jo made a growling sound, but relaxed an inch, "All right."

Spencer reached the end of the checklist and sighed. "Ok, that's it." He told Jo. "We have everything we need to help you get through the physical detox safely. But you're the one who has to decide to stop. It's a decision you have to make every day, maybe every hour or even every few minutes at first. But we will all support you, we promise." The others all chimed in their agreement. "Now, I know you don't know us well enough yet to trust this, but between us we can help with dealing with everything that got you here in the first place as well." He fished the small bottle out of his pocket and set it on the table, just like Ethan had once done to him. "It's up to you."

Jo looked okay up until that last part. "Right, like any of you have any clue…."

"I do." Kat broke in. Jo looked at her, suddenly scared. "I won't tell them though, that's your story."

"How?" Jo demanded.

"Finnick told me." Jo looked down at the couch, wide eyed, not seeing anything. Kat went over and gently rubbed her shoulder. "And if you think that changes anything then you really are brainless."

Jo stood there a long moment, holding herself, looking at the corner of the couch, pointedly not looking at the bottle. She seemed to wind up tighter and tighter, until "Fuck!" And she stormed out the back door of the cabin.

Spencer stopped Kat before she followed her friend, knowing that Jo needed to make this decision on her own. So he pulled Kat into his arms. "She has to." Kat murmured. "It's like it's another battle. Snow can't win, he just can't."

"Yeah, but she has to fight it. We can't."

They watched through the back window as Jo stared into the forest, and paced, and almost literally wrestled with herself. Finally she just stood there for a long moment. Then, without a word to anyone, she stormed back in, picked up the small bottle and tossed it into the fireplace so hard it smashed.

 


	12. Chapter 12

No one had fun for the next week.

Jo grew steadily sicker over the first few days as the toxins slowly left her body and her nervous system adapted. By the first night she had the shakes, she was practically running a fever and everything ached, especially her legs. Her stomach started turning and she lost her appetite. She started racing off to the bathroom on a regular basis. And her whole head ran with what could have been the worst head cold ever.

And that was just the physical effects.

She grew anxious, restless and peevish, even more so than usual. She was frustrated and nearly impossible to distract. And, even with the meds on board, she never slept more than a few hours at a time, the nightmares started up right away, causing her to wake screaming, and then sit there and curse for having to deal with the pain of their return.

They took turns sitting up with her. As near as anyone could tell she and Kat discussed old times and old friends and life in the world they had lived in. Spencer realized he'd found a fellow card player; Jo knew many games and was wickedly competitive. But when Morgan stayed to let Spencer and Kat have a night together, he and Jo ended up talking about just about everything.

She wasn't peevish with him.

"Do you have family?" Jo asked.

They were sitting on the floor in front of the fire. It was almost too warm but she'd been getting chills and she'd actually asked for it tonight, said it made the place feel like home. He had a cold beer; she had a cold bottle of electrolyte solution, not exactly what he'd pour a lady on their first date, but then when had anything arranged by Reid been the usual. "Yeah, I do. I have a mom, two older sisters, my Aunt Yvonne, my cousin Cindi and her son Anthony. They all live in Chicago. I don't know where that would be on your map."

"District 9, at least their railhead; we checked it out on the way here from the desert when we changed trains. Kat and I remembered the station from our Victory tours; it was all shiny and new this time."

Morgan nodded, "Union station. It was build in…1925, I think? Somewhere in there; almost a hundred years, it's not new."

"Give it another three hundred. No Dad?"

Good point. "Yeah, he was a cop, a…I kind of a Peacekeeper I guess. He was shot in the line of duty, back when I was ten."

"Oh. I'm sorry." She made some muttered, grumpy noise and propped her heel to knead a muscle ache out of her calf.

"It's all right. He was a good man; loved us a lot. Here, put 'em up." She paused and he smiled. "Come on, I won't bite." After a moment and a long, wary look Jo draped her legs across his lap and he started working on those muscle cramps for her. "How about you, any family?"

"I might bite." Jo chuckled, "Yeah, Mom, Dad, older brother, Ben. Not anymore though, Snow killed them…fifteen years ago? Or is it….shit, how do you talk about something that's in your past but everyone else's future?"

Morgan thought about it a minute. "I think what matters is the continuity of your life, especially when it comes to personal stuff. So, your past. Why did Snow kill them?"

Jo looked at him over the lip of her bottle for a long moment. She's sizing me up, he thought, I'm about to get tested. "Because I told him no. A few times."

Morgan knew. He knew exactly what she meant by that, "Him personally?"

"Yes, but not like that, his wealthy friends," now she wasn't looking at him.

"Hey." When she didn't look up he wiggled her knee. "Hey." Finally. "I've been a cop for seventeen years. You're not going to tell me something I haven't heard before." He kept working, not letting her get lost in her own head. "Fifteen years ago, you must have been about that." It was all invitation.

"Yeah," she was quiet a long moment. "You know, I had no clue what it meant when people started sending me stuff in the Arena." She admitted at last. "Blight was a drunken ass, he never told me anything." She sighed a little. "It was hot that year and it was all forest and I knew what to do in it. I grew up in the forest. My plan was always to hide until the Career pack picked enough people off. I'd found some vines I could use for snares and….really, does any of it matter now? When it came down to the last six I started, well, doing what needed to be done. Focused. Focused on what I was doing so I wouldn't focus on…." She stopped and he felt her shudder ever so quietly.

"Hey." He wiggled her knee until she opened her eyes and looked at him again. "I've had to go after guys in the line of duty. I know."

"They were just…"

"And so were you."

"Right." It took her a minute but she found the thread again. "Right, so I went head to head with the girl from One, real close. Got her with her own knife in the end. But I still had five to go, and I realized I had been rolling in poison oak. I didn't know what to do, I was fighting for my life, I did not need some insane rash right then. There was a creek in the arena, big enough, and my clothes were covered. You can't not know that everyone is watching, but usually for something like that they cut away, so I didn't even think of it, I just stripped down and jumped in. Next thing I know here comes this parachute with this bar of soap."

Morgan sighed. He remembered this part, Kat had explained one night how Sponsors would send in gifts if they thought someone was desirable and would be amenable if they won. He'd known enough sex offenders in his time to know that her innocent desire to survive had been manipulated into…well… "And then came other things."

"Yeah. Fresh water. Food. Weapons, finally, good ones. At that point I knew I must have picked up some fabulously wealthy Sponsors but at the time…I just wanted to go home. I was fifteen and scared out of my mind and I just wanted to go back home." She sipped her drink and looked off into the past as he voice broke. "I won. I got to go home."

Morgan could hear the weight of that. "But..."

"There was this boy, Shasta. He was…nice. You know. Maybe not that bright, but sweet. Gentle. All thoughtful and good with emotions where I'm just…he lived just down the street from us and he would walk to school with me and always try to make me laugh." She smiled a little, at the memory. "He was gone before I made it home. They said it was a snake bite, but he knew the woods as well as I did, he knew how to avoid snakes. Snow was protecting his investment." That last came out as a hiss.

Morgan knew what that had to mean, but he could see that she wanted to be asked. "You mean…"

"Yeah, I was. I was District, you know. You waited until you were married, did the decent thing. If nothing else you waited until you were old enough not to be Reaped. Everyone knew they wouldn't care if you already had babies depending on you or if you were knocked up, if you were Reaped you died. I remember sitting in class one year and this one girl one year from Ten, she was as big as a house, it was…." Jo closed her eyes to ward off the pain. "We all knew. Shit, most of us didn't even go through puberty until after our last Reaping day, then all of a sudden all the boys got tall and all the girls got real tits. It was like your body knew somehow." She chuckled a little. "Six months later, just before my Victory tour I heard my prep team talking about what I was going to be doing. They were cracking jokes about why they had to take off all my body hair and how hard I was going to have to work to pay my Sponsor's back, but it wasn't really work, right. It wasn't hard to figure out what they meant. Nobody gave a shit that I was all of fifteen."

"So what did you do?" Morgan asked.

"I told my parents. They told me to tell Snow no, polite but firm, that they would find a way to pay back my debts but District 7 girls didn't do that. The night of my big banquet at his house he told me I'd be having a private dinner with some friends of his the next night. I told him no and I took myself to the station and got on the train home."

"What happened?"

"As I was walking home from the station it was just coming on to dawn. I saw the house go up, this big whoosh." She sighed and finished her drink. "I hope they were dead first."

"I'm sorry." Morgan said, very quietly.

Jo just shook her head. "After the funeral I told my brother what was happening. He didn't say anything; he just got up and walked out of the house. He came back just before the train was supposed to leave and handed me three hundred dollars, more money than we'd ever had in our lives, and told me to tell Snow that this was the first payment." Morgan didn't have to ask where her brother got the money. He knew. "I went back to the Capitol, Snow had me brought to his greenhouse, this place full of roses, and I offered him the money. He looked at it and he told me that bar of soap alone cost ten times that much, and that I had a date later that evening."

Damn. "So what did you do?" Morgan asked.

"I tried." As he watched the tears started rolling down her face. She'd been keeping tissues around, now she pulled one out of her pocket. "I really did, I didn't want to lose the only family I had left. Ben was my best friend up till then; he was big and so dammed protective, big brother and all. But it was so cold and this old man and I just…I freaked out and attacked. I couldn't help it. I fought him off." It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'good for you', but he knew better. "The next morning they bundled me back on the train. By the time I got back they'd already buried Ben and no one would tell me where. They said he hung himself in the forest, and left a note saying that our parents had killed themselves because they were so ashamed of the way I was acting in the Capitol." She sounds so young, he thought, like she's fifteen again. He wondered if she'd ever told anyone before. "No one wanted to talk to me about it; they were all keeping away from me and I couldn't tell if they were disgusted or afraid. I was in the Justice building where the Peacekeepers were telling me the official story when one came up and said I had a call upstairs. It was Snow, of course. He told me to look out the window, down at the square. It was market day and everyone was out and he said that if I didn't cooperate he would start killing the fathers of my friends, so when they starved to death in the winter it would be my fault. It was my responsibility…"

"No, it was not." He broke in.

She looked up like she was seeing him there for the first time. "If I hadn't…"

"It was not your responsibility."

"But…."

"No." Morgan shook his head. "I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard this story. Some bastard wants something and he tells a child 'do it or I'll kill Mommy and Daddy'. The only difference is that your bastard made it stick. Now if some kid came up and told you that someone told that to her right now…"

"I'd carve the fucker's ass off and nail it to the nearest tree." She replied, grown–up and savage again.

"There ya go. Would it be that kid's fault?"

She just glared at him a long moment while it sunk in. "Fuck." She muttered finally.

"How long were you at it?"

"Ten years. I didn't know if they were ashamed of me or angry or afraid, but they were my District, my people, and I wasn't going to let them down. Eventually, thought, it was more about gathering secrets for the rebellion." She cocked her head and looked at him. "So what does that make me?"

He heard the unsaid  _to you_  on the end of that. "A victim. A survivor. A veteran. And I think the professional term is a 'honey trap' which is something my ex-partner did for a while, so someone who gave a lot to stop the bad guy." He just smiled at her. "Not what you're thinking. I can't think of you like that. I am worried about you though."

"Why?" She asked, suddenly wary.

"Because if you're telling this story to someone you've only known a week then it is not the worst thing that ever happened to you." He replied

Jo was silent a long moment, silent and scared. "Fuck." She finally muttered again.

"I'm not asking." Morgan reassured her.

"Good." She was quiet another long moment. "So how do you know so much about this anyway?"

Now it was Morgan's turn to sigh. "I once had this coach, Carl Buford…"

 


	13. Chapter 13

Spencer had a stack of papers laid out on the bedroom floor. He was trying to organize the notes for a class he was supposed to be teaching next semester over at Georgetown. He was also trying to relax and lose himself it the words and concepts, but it wasn't happening. And he knew exactly why, he could almost feel the energy from the bed radiating against his back. Finally he heard a book thump against the bed. "I'm dropping out of school." Kat announced at last. "I can't do this." He gathered the papers, semi-organized now, back into their folder, set it aside and turned to look at her, his chin resting on the mattress. She looked stormy and prickly and demanding, at least at first glance, her chin set like she was daring him to argue. But he could see the frustration and confusion in her eyes. "I can't do this." She said again.

"All right," he told her, simply.

He saw the fear come into her eyes with the rest of it, just a little. She never could hide her feelings. "You're not disappointed?"

"Nope," he got up and went around and dropped on the bed, facing her, stopping only to fetch something from her suitcase, "Although I've never known you to give up before. You might try withdrawing for the semester instead of dropping out entirely. You can do that, you know."

"I didn't." She admitted. "Although I don't know that a few months is going to help. I can't focus worth a damn."

"Says the hunter who brings in so much game that we never need to buy meat," he took her hands and rubbed them a little in preparation. "Take some time off, help Jo get on her feet, then decide. Maybe take half the classes next time so you don't have as much pressure."

She watched him, listened to him a moment. "Why are you doing this?" She asked, quietly.

"What, helping Jo? Because she's a fellow addict trying to get clean and I have a moral obligation to support her with that. Because from the moment we met her I could tell she was more than just your friend, I could tell that she was your family, and that makes her my family. And because I owe her."

"Owe her?" That caught Kat by surprise.

For a long moment Spencer peered into the shifting cloud of data that was part of his mind. "I can almost see it." He admitted at last. "I can see all of the parts of your life in the world around us, all in embryonic form. But for the life of me I can't see the pattern. I can't see how they all come together to create the future. I'm missing something and I can't stop what I can't see. I'm failing at this one." He sighed. "And someday you, both of you, are going to rectify my failure and pay a hell of a price for it. I owe you both for that." He tightened his fingers around hers to keep her from going to where he knew she would go. He could see it in the suddenly wary look in her eyes. "No, that's not why I married you, it's part of why I'm helping Jo. But that's something else you were asking, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"I married you because I am admittedly attracted to strong, brave, independent women and you are one of the strongest, bravest, most independent women I have ever met. I know that if I turned you lose in the woods out there with nothing you'd have a functioning home in a week. That fascinates me, every time. You literally don't need anyone or anything and yet here you are with me."

Kat shook her head. "No, I…"

"And what's more, given your skills and your instincts I would give you odds over any Unsub who came through that door." Frank Breitkopf, George Foyet, Izzy Rodgers or even Doyle himself couldn't take her on and make it, this much he knew. "Yes, part of why I love you is because you're safe to love."

She rolled her eyes at that. "Yeah, I'm…."

"And I love you because I find the way you show love fascinating. You take care of people, without any fuss or any desire for anything in return. You took care of your sister, of your District, of your partner and your fiancée. Now you're taking care of me. I haven't had someone take care of me, think me worthy of that care since I was seven years old. Call me selfish but I love being one of the people you love." He smiled, just a little. "It brings out your bravery, you know. I have a confession. The morning after we had that fight over library books…."

"That was hardly a fight." Jo huffed.

"…I stopped at Starbucks for coffee. I saw you get on the bus to take the books back. It was the most remarkable thing." Now he was looking into memory as his fingers kept busy with hers. "You looked so terrified and so determined and so very strong by turns. It took me forever to figure out what it was that was causing all of that. And then I realized that you had never been in a city unescorted before. You had never crossed a city street in your life."

She was silent a moment. "They were all so big and so fast."

"And you had no reason to think they would stop just because a light told them to. But you did it anyway just so I wouldn't have to pay a library fine. Of all the mundane things, but you were so determined. It was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen."

She sighed. "But Spencer…"

"And you know the really amazing part. You let me take care of you at the same time. I've been fully capable since Dad left, I've had to be, and yet most people still treat me like a child. You don't, you've always treated me as an equal."

Kat frowned. "Spencer, you're, what, ten years older than I am? Why would I treat you like a child?"

"Not a clue, but remind me to tell you about Ashley Seaver some time. The point is, you trust me as much as you show yourself worthy of my trust, and I admittedly find that extraordinary. I also find you loyal to a fault, incredibly lovely, amazing in bed, and I deeply enjoy your company. I'm also madly in love with you, but love is impossible to explain."

She sighed again. "Spencer…"

"Now I know you're about to tell me what a horrible match you are, you're moody and prickly and selfish and self-centered and stupid and far too much the bitch to ever be worthy of being someone's wife. And I will tell you that while you do tend to be quiet to the point of being taciturn, a trait which I actually happen to admire, I have found you to be none of those things. You're caring and gentle and intelligent and loving and generous. And you will reply by telling me that you don't feel that way right now at all."

Kat gave it up. "Reading my mind?"

"No, your meter," all his tugging at her hands and playing with her fingers while he was talking, had been to both reassure and calm her and to distract her from what he was doing. Now he lifted the blood glucose meter and revealed a disturbingly low number. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Um, when did we have omelets?"

"Eighteen hours ago. You feel like a moody, cranky bitch who can't focus because your blood sugar is low." He scooted forward and kissed her forehead. "I'm going to go make you something to eat. Jo is over the worst of it; tomorrow you need to start taking care of yourself again if you want to tend to this without medication."

Kat fell back, pulled a pillow over her face and groaned. "I never got like this back home." She told him. "Why am I getting sick now?"

Spencer sighed, they'd only had this conversation about a hundred times already. "Because you were younger, it gets worse over time. Also this was a survival trait, being able to function in times of high stress and little food meant moving glycogen in and out of your liver quickly in response to a threat and being able to efficiently move past that and start working on your fat stores. That's a trait which probably kept you alive at the expense of things like concentration and learning ability and mood and a sex drive all of which you find important now. Also I'd be surprised if many in your community lived past sixty."

"No, sixty was a ripe old age in Twelve."

"Exactly. I'd like you to be able to enjoy your life, not just survive it, and I'd like us to grow old together." He was already getting up, moving to the door of the bedroom, wondering what would be quick and easy on the stomach. They had hard boiled eggs, he thought, and mac and cheese, although that might be good enough on its own before bed…. It took a moment for what he was seeing to sink in, but when it did… "Kat." He motioned for her to join him and look.

There, in front of the fire, a very comfortable Derek Morgan was stretched out, leaning against the sofa, snoring lightly. And an equally comfortable Jo Mason was curled up like a cat next to him, using his thigh as a pillow.

"May the odds be ever in his favor." Kat murmured, and then she went back to bed.

 


	14. Chapter 14

Hotch still had trouble believing it. It was simply impossible for him to accept. Even for all his experience and training in this one instance he simply had to believe a lie rather than the truth.

The Official Story thus far, the Primary Cover, was that approximately five years ago Katherine Abernathy, a student at George Washington, met one Dr. Spencer Reid. Things took the rather predictable path and after a few years they married and settled down. There were some rumors about Kat having an abusive past, but no one in the department would hold prior victimhood against anyone.

The current addition to the Official Story/Primary Cover, conceived after Garcia came back from Vegas insisting that it was ALL REAL that she SAW it, was that Kat's cousin Jo was staying with Kat and Reid for a time while she got her life back together after a personal crisis.

Fine. Good. Lovely. Everyone was happy.

The only problem was that the more you learned about Kat the less that held together. Kat could outshoot Morgan with a bow and arrow. Kat could also out hunt Morgan, or hide from him in the woods for as long as she dammed well wanted to. And he had seen the two of them in the gym when Kat was supposed to be learning some non-lethal self-defense and had a flashback. It wasn't so much that you could say she had skills, she clearly didn't have Morgan's formal training although she did have some, but she had the kind of desperation that involved experience in fighting for your life. She also had the kind of flashbacks that went with a rip-roaring case of PTSD, far more than even the worst abuse could cause.

So he, Reid, Rossi and Morgan had sat down and come up with a Secondary Cover, just in case someone like Erin Strauss decided to take a harder look at things. This involved admitting that Kat was not a college student when she and Reid met and broadly implying that there was a Commander in Kandahar that was regretting her retirement. And, it could be implied, her friend Jo's as well. This would work because, as they found out during the Doyle case, Reid somehow ended up with the highest security clearance in the  _Bureau_ , a fact which only baffled those who hadn't seen him break codes in his head. So if someone called the DOD looking for her they would be understandably stymied, whatever Kat did in what could be presumed as a stint in Special Forces the caller didn't have the clearance for the DOD to even acknowledge her existence. At any rate she was now retired, happily married, and recovering. And, one could assume Jo was from the same unit and embarking on her own recovery with the help of a former team member.

It was a tidy package. One Hotch admitted to himself that he found comfortable; easy to believe. So much so that he wanted to ask Reid for her former rank at times.

It was easier to believe that she was a veteran from a war that had ended, because if she was a veteran of a war and a world yet to come then he wouldn't be able to sleep for worry.

He had more life insurance than just about anyone. He installed energy efficient light bulbs in the condo, and low-flow shower heads. They recycled. Jessica shopped organic and local whenever they could and used cloth bags. He even bought a dammed Prius as his private vehicle. And he had Jack in the best private school he could manage and would pull every string to get him into the best college. He was doing everything in his power to give his son a good chance at a good future.

And if Kat was from that future, then it was all completely pointless. Because his grandchildren or his great-grandchildren, or his grandchildren beyond that were either going to have to fight a civil war to regain their freedom or they would have become monsters and either way he would stand better to quit everything and take Jack out into the woods and teach him how to survive.

He couldn't think about that.

It was far easier to believe that Reid married a veteran of the last war, not the next one.

He told himself he was running this errand because this was an interesting case file, and he wanted Reid's opinion without having to ask him to come back to the office just yet. But he knew he really needed to see this new one, the better to convince himself of the lie.

Or face the truth.

But only if he had to.

**Gideon's Cabin  
Outside the Shenandoah National Forest**

The funny thing was, even though he was one of the few people who knew how to find this place he'd never actually been up here. "So this is the great retreat?" He asked Morgan, who was out front with Clooney. "Did Garcia call you?"

"Yeah, it is. You tripped the security system on the way in." Morgan nodded in to the cabin. "You missed breakfast."

"Reid is here, there's coffee. We've received an interesting case file from Mexico, they want a consult, and Garcia sent a few things." A few things included a case that could only house a weapon. Yes, he was curious. He gathered the case and the file, gave the box over to Morgan and followed him into the cabin. Reid was doing dishes, Kat looked to be sorting some kind of hunting gear on the now empty table, and at the kitchen island there was someone entirely new.

Morgan stopped, took a deep breath and made the introductions. "Aaron Hotchner, Johanna Mason. Hotch, Jo"

"Ms. Mason." The woman in question was tall and overly slender and a few years older than Kat but not many. She had spiky dark hair, wide, dark eyes and an almost predatory grace as she unfolded herself from the kitchen stool and came over to shake hands. When she did he could see the carefully shuttered concern in her eyes and the track marks on her arms, but Garcia had said she was clean, or would be by now. He could respect sobriety, even if it was measured in days. Speaking of, he turned to Kat. "Garcia said these were for you." He indicated the case and the box. "She said they weren't supposed to come up before today."

"Oh, hey, yes. Thank you." The box went on the table, it looked to involve toiletries and perhaps clothing, mostly, but Kat took the case and offered it to Jo. "I promised."

Meanwhile Morgan had led the way to the coffee pot. "I brought a case file." He admitted when Reid looked over. "I know you're still on vacation, but it's an interesting consult from Mexico." Morgan was technically on call, but Reid had until Monday before he was back on the clock.

"That's all right. Kat and Jo are going to be heading out in a few minutes. Hunting. We'll have the table to work on." Reid dried his hands and went for the file.

"Ohhhhh Sparky," Jo sounded…well…all the men turned and looked at her. "Just say the word and I will show you things that man of yours could not dream of." She lifted the items out of their nests in the case.

They were hatchets.

Specifically they were either short axes or large hatchets, clearly not made for chopping wood. They were matt black with tactical grips and even from here he could see that they were ground to a fine edge. As he watched Jo started flipping them about, testing their weight, treating them like she'd handled them all her life, like they were part of her.

Now he was going to have to wonder about her rank as well.

"No thanks, you're ill equipped. Think you still know what to do with those?" One of the things Garcia had included in the box was a roll of paper. Now Kat took one sheet from that role and went to the cupboard to fetch a staple gun, then headed out the back.

"Puh-lease." Jo sauntered after her. Hotch passed a look between Morgan and Reid and the three of them followed.

The paper turned out to be a human silhouette target from the shooting range. Kat was stapling up on a tree a distance away. "Okay, Mason, live up to your legend." She said as she moved back to the wall of the cabin.

Jo had already attached the holsters to her belt, one on either side. Now she stood a moment, hatchet in hand, breathing, getting a feel for it. Then she took a deep breath, lunged, and threw.

The first hatchet sunk three inches deep in what would have been right between the eyes.

The second sunk three inches deep right between the legs.

Reid looked over at Morgan with barely restrained laughter.

Jo looked back at Kat with a grin that took a decade off her eyes. "So, ready to go hunting?" she asked as she went to retrieve her weapons.

Kat stepped up, lifted her bow, and sunk an arrow into the target's heart. "Sure." She turned and gave Reid a quick kiss. "Back before sundown," she told him. Then she darted passed Jo into the tree line. Jo put her last hatchet into his holster, waved to Morgan and they were gone.

Special Forces, Hotch told himself. Has to be. Has to be.

 


	15. Chapter 15

Everything changed once they were in the woods. Jo might not have been a hunter back in 7, their Peacekeepers were too careful and too strict, but she had set snares before, and had hiked and stalked in the woods. Kat felt utterly comfortable having her at her back. It wasn't like having Gale, but all things considered….

By the time they stopped she'd taken two rabbits, a squirrel and a pheasant, and Jo's flying hatchet had taken out a too-brave raccoon. Not a bad haul for one morning. Time to switch gears, "Curly dock," she told Jo, pointing to the patch of plants. "Good for forage." She'd brought bags for that as well.

"Lamb's quarters?" Jo asked. Kat nodded so she started in on that. "Living in the old Capitol and you still forage?"

"You would not believe the coin some people will pay for wild greens. All the fancy restaurants want them. And I prefer wild game." They dug in companionable silence for a while. "Better, then?"

"Yeah, kind of," Jo replied. "I'd forgotten why I started in the first place."

"Why?"

"Nightmares, hurts to remember; sometimes nothing feels quite real. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up."

Kat sat back on her heels. "I know; I didn't have it as bad, but I used to feel like that. It does pass."

Jo snorted, "Right."

"It does."

"What, a week? A month?"

"Oh, I don't know." Kat replied, "Three, four…five years."

Jo chuckled. "Okay, maybe I can see that."

"You know what helped the most at first?" Kat looked up and around her at the great green heart of her home. "This place, these woods; they aren't exactly the woods where I used to hunt. I still don't know where my lake is or where the Seam will be, but they're so very close. Close enough to be home for me. Just the same as they were before the games. I spent the first summer and fall here, just letting the ground get stable under me again. I didn't go to the city until I was about to get snowed in." Jo stood up and took a slow turn around her. "We can stay up here, if you want. We don't have to go to the city."

Jo sighed and shook her head. "These aren't my woods, Kat."

"Well, we can go find them"

"No. We can't." She dropped back down to pull her knees up under her chin, hug her legs to herself. "They burned my woods. They burned out the rebels during the uprisings in 7. Stupid fucks thought they could control the fire. They burned out miles and miles." Kat felt a soft sound of sorrow come out of her throat, she could just imagine. "I tried to go back, after the war. They were replanting, and I offered my entire pension to help. They said they didn't need the help of a Capitol whore."

Kat was stunned, "Even after Finnick's propo about Snow? And all you did?"

Jo chuckled. "My people were never the brightest in the bunch. No, I want to go to the old Capitol. There's something I need to see." She turned her head as something growled through the woods. "What is that?"

"I think it's thunder."

**Gideon's Cabin  
Outside the Shenandoah National Forest**

**Spencer**

"It looks familiar." Spencer told them

Once the women had left the house they had spread the file from Mexico out on the table. It wasn't because the women were women, of course, but they weren't FBI and they didn't need more traumas in their lives. Granted they were out killing things so clearly neither had a problem with the sight of blood. And Kat hadn't had an issue with the sight of case files, or even with him going out on cases or the amount of time the job took. No, she was entirely self-contained and resilient, so long as there wasn't video involved. But there was still no need to show her this.

"Familiar?" Morgan asked. "I thought you remembered everything."

"An eidetic memory is generally confined to one sense, usually the visual sense, which is why I can recall anything I read. I can recite a conversation for a time after it happened but that's a learned skill." He grinned at Morgan, "Comes in handy when you're counting cards. Whatever this is, I haven't encountered it before in written form, in a case file or a book. Maybe a picture…."

"But somewhere?" Hotch asked.

Spencer sighed, "Maybe. It's familiar somehow. When I get back to work on Monday I'll head into the archives, see if anything connects. It looks like they're almost…experimenting."

"They?" Morgan asked.

"They," Spencer replied. "It would take more than one person to pull this off."

"Okay, experimenting? Not some kind of gang initiation?"

"No. Look at the progression, each crime scene incorporates and builds on elements of the last. It's like…they're trying to reach a goal, to put together the perfect scene, but they have to tinker with all the elements to make it work, then experiment with live subjects to see if they have it down, then try again."

"What happens when they reach that goal?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know."

"Experimentation goes along with the time frame." Hotch commented. "The time between the discoveries of the crime scenes has actually been growing, not shrinking. They're evolving, not devolving."

"That would make sense if it's getting more complex every time. The satisfaction is in getting it right, not in having it happen; they can be patient to achieve perfection. Have we run the victimology yet? See if any of this has anything to do with these people?" Morgan wanted to know.

"Not yet." Hotch replied. "Garcia was starting to work on it today. This isn't fully our case, and given the time frame it's not a priority."

"No, but whoever these people are, they aren't going to stop until they have it right. The Federal Police will have more bodies." Spencer looked over the first crime scene again. "And this first one is almost too organized; it looks like they've done this before."

"Maybe that's where you've seen it." Hotch pointed out.

"Yeah," just then Spencer's phone rang from an unfamiliar number. "This is Dr. Reid."

" _This is the Hiker's Spot with a prerecorded distress message….."_

Spencer didn't bother to listen to the rest; he hung up and went for his tablet. "Kat and Jo are in trouble."


	16. Chapter 16

"She has a what?" Hotch asked.

"It's called a Hiker's Spot." Reid replied as he found the right screen. "It's a GPS tracking system that maintains a record of her location and the path she took to get there. It also has three pre-programmable buttons that send alerts to specified phone numbers, usually mine but when we're out on a case it forwards to Garcia. It was an alternative to her carrying a cell phone since there isn't any reception on the other side of the ridge."

"And why don't you carry one?" Morgan asked.

"Why don't we all carry one?" Hotch replied. "Remind me to look into it."

"There we go." Once through the password screen a topo map came up with their path overlaid and the spot where they had sent up a distress signal marked. "It looks like they went up the wash to the west of here and over the ridge, then hooked up with the Stony Mountain trail until they crossed Dark Hollow creek, then they followed the creek downstream, probably following a game trail. They're about a mile and a half in. It looks like they're just calling for us; Kat hasn't hit the 911 button."

"Yeah, but why?" Morgan wanted to know.

"We won't know until we get…." A roll of thunder interrupted Reid. "I know what it is. Come on."

Dark Hollow

At the base of Stony Mountain  
Shenandoah National Park

After fetching their FBI windbreakers, just in case they needed to be identified, they headed into the wilderness, following the same trail Reid's wife and her friend had taken. From everything he knew about her Kat Reid was an experienced outdoorswoman and hunter, there was little in the woods that could cause her any form of distress. And none of it would require the help of her admittedly far less experienced husband. So he asked Reid to explain to him as they hiked.

Big mistake.

Even as Reid explained his mind simply refused to accept any of what the younger agent was trying to tell him. "Reid, stop." He didn't just mean physically, although they paused on the steel bridge over the creek. "I'm sorry. I know everyone else believes it, and I'm not saying it's not, but I just can't…."

Reid nodded. "I understand."

"Can you explain it without the part that sounds like it comes from a science fiction novel?"

Reid thought a moment. "I believe so." They took up hiking again. "If you go with the idea that they were both in the military then I would describe what happened to them as being pinned down by enemy fire. An extraction team was sent in by helicopter to airlift them out, but when they got to the rendezvous point there was an enemy squad too close to safely bring the helo in. Jo, being older and having rank, led the enemy soldiers away, allowing Kat, and most of the rest of the squad, to be extracted. Unfortunately both she and Kat's fiancée were captured and held as prisoners of war for, I believe, three months until they could complete a rescue op."

"Thank you. I can work with that." Hotch mulled over the possibilities, "Interrogation?"

"According to Kat, Jo spent several months in recovery. Her fiancée was actually brainwashed into thinking Kat was a…a terrorist leader, he was suffering from violent paranoia when he returned, triggered by a combination of torture and exposure to a compound that bore a remarkable resemblance to LSD."

"I remember that." Morgan said. "But this is the first I'm hearing about Jo."

"It should be her story to tell." Reid replied.

"So you think she might have had a flashback out here?"

"It's the one thing I can think of. She's terrified of water now; she has trouble even washing her hands."

"Waterboarding?" Hotch asked.

"No idea. She's not nearly far enough along in recovery to talk about it. Given that the country…um, in the absence of VA support due to the…black nature of their unit she hasn't had any treatment since…the unit stood down."

Hotch appreciated the effort to make this whole thing more…palatable. "I assume she was self-medicating then. I know opiates are not uncommon in these cases." It would be…impolitic of him to outright ask if they were up here because Reid was taking her through a too-familiar detox.

"Yes, they are common in these cases." Reid carefully confirmed that. Of course just then the skies opened up. "The weather report said sunny this morning, I swear."

"Okay, so she got rained on and what, started running?" Morgan had to raise his voice to be heard over the falling water. "That point on the map was stable."

"No, there are a number of caves and shallow old mines in the area."

"You think she ran into one?" Hotch asked.

"It's likely. And Kat's claustrophobic underground. She's been working on it with short Metro rides around the city, but if she was already upset she might not have been able to go in after her."

"Why? Without the sci-fi."

"No need." Reid returned. "She's originally from an area relatively not far from here; her father was a coal miner. He died in a accident when she was eleven; she said she's been mildly claustrophobic ever since."

Sure enough when they reached the point on the map they found Kat crouching outside a small opening in the side of the mountain, clinging to Mal, trying to fight off her own panic attack. "When the rain started and the lightning she just started screaming." She told her husband as soon as he was in earshot. "She took off into there. I tried to go after her but it sounded like the whole thing was coming down and I just…."

"Shhh, shhh. It's okay." Some of the tree cover was thick enough to be almost dry. Reid pulled Kat under a tree and into his arms. "We'll get her out."

"I didn't know what else to do." Kat told him as she rested her head on his shoulder. "I hate this! I hate that they took anything from us! She shouldn't be afraid of the rain!"

"I know. I know."

"Reid, why don't you get her back? Morgan and I will help….help…" Hell. "Will you just…make up a rank for her, please?" He was beginning to suspect that this was more frustrating than dealing with Foyet. Not with losing Hailey, nothing could ever be more painful, but more than the hunt. At least with Foyet he could try to protect Jack, with this…

Reid looked over at his wife. "What rank did they give you anyway?"

"Soldier," Kat replied. "We were all called Soldier."

"That doesn't help. Would you say either you or Jo had any kind of military leadership?"

"No, Boggs was the Commander, and Jackson was his second. I think he called her Lieutenant once. After them it was the rest of us from the Districts. We were better at it than the people from the Capitol though. Jo would have been up there with us."

"Sounds like higher ranking enlisted, maybe? But Jo had been a rebel for…six years so maybe an E-5 or an E-6?" Hotch was very relieved when Reid nodded and turned to him, "Staff Sergeant, maybe?"

Thank God, he could work with that. "Morgan and I will help Sergeant Mason, you two get back."

As the Reids headed back down the trail Morgan, who had ducked into the cave with the flashlight Reid had insisted on bringing, stuck his head back. "Wait here. Hotch. I got this."

Hotch could only hope that he was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Hiker's Spot
> 
> http://www.outdoorsafetygps.com/


	17. Chapter 17

The cave itself wasn't exactly deep, but it had a little dogleg to the right just inside the entrance. Right around the corner Morgan found Jo, huddled against the wall, her knees up to her nose, her arms wrapped around her head. She was literally shaking in her terror. But even from the corner he could still see the two razor sharp hatchets attached to her belt. Those are going to make this tricky, he thought, but then she might be dangerous even without them when she's like this. "Jo," he started from well away, outside her personal space, enough of a distance not to be threatening. "Jo, it's all right girl, it's over. You're safe. It's not real. It's Derek Morgan; I'm the only one here. You're safe. Nothing here is going to hurt you. It's not real."

He murmured this to her, calmly, soothingly, just loud enough to be heard over the rain. At one point he heard a quiet "Morgan" behind him and realized it was Hotch. He slid his weapon out of his holster and carefully slid it back to his teammate, the better to have it away from Jo if she panicked. He'd seen what she could do with a hatchet; he did not want her near a gun.

Slowly, carefully, murmuring calming things, he inched closer, Hotch a few feet behind him. The rain picked up and Jo reflexively curled into a tighter ball. "Shhh, now, don't go away from me. Don't you go away from me, it's okay. It's Morgan. Come on Jo, it's all right."

They got closer and heard her, finally, muttering to her knees in a soft, broken whisper. "I can't. I can't anymore. It still hurts. I can't again. I can't! It still hurts!"

Damn. "It's okay, sweetheart, it's okay. They're not going to hurt you anymore. You're safe, you're safe now." Did Reid have to do this, he wondered, up here all alone? Is this what brought those two so tight together?

He crept a little closer, just as the rain came down heavier. It sounded like someone was running a fire hose down the front of the cave. She curled up even tighter than he thought possible, and then he heard it; the tiniest sound, " _Help_."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here to help you. I'll help you. Come on now, I'll help. Here. Come here." She's hearing me, he realized as her body language shifted. She's hearing me from inside the flashback. That might be enough. "Come on, I'll help. Come on. Just reach out to me sweetheart. Just reach out."

Then, wonder of wonders, she uncurled long enough to just barely, just carefully, put out her hand.

He gently took her hand in his own. One soft tug and she was half falling, half flying into his arms. He caught her in close, and quickly took her weapons away; sliding them along the ground behind them, not quite relaxing until he heard Hotch's quiet "clear" as he secured them. Only then did he realize just how small, how frail she really was when all that attitude shut down. "Shhh, easy, you're safe. No one's going to hurt you anymore." He said over and over as he held her very tightly. She was shaking like a leaf, sobbing into his shirt, coming out of it but so slowly. Probably not until the rain stops, he thought, she's too afraid right now.

Morgan looked over to where Hotch was standing, almost leaning against the wall, looking suddenly so drawn and so tired. "How can I send Jack into this?" He asked quietly, "Or his children?"

Morgan just shook his head. He didn't know.

* * *

**Gideon's Cabin  
Outside the Shenandoah National Forest**

**Spencer**

"Can you fix her?"

It had poured rain the entire way back. Spencer and Kat were both soaked to the skin by the time they made the shelter of the cabin. He pulled her into the bedroom, fully intending to get them both through a warm shower and into dry clothes before starting a fire and putting the kettle on for the others when they returned. But Kat seemed colder than expected, quieter than usual, even for her. And now, as he looked up, she'd pinned him with those grey eyes that saw everything once again. "What?"

"Can you fix her? She said you fixed Peeta, can you fix her too?"

There was something so helpless about her right now, and Kat was never helpless about anything. Even when she was at her most confused or upset, she figured out what needed to be done or how to work around it or something. But right now she just seemed…lost. He went over and started her peeling out of her cold, wet clothes as they talked. "I didn't 'fix' Peeta. You can't 'fix' people, it doesn't work that way. You can heal them, but it's not the same thing."

"I don't…I don't understand." She took over her own wet buttons from him.

"You can't 'fix" people Kat, not in the way I think you mean. You can help them heal, you can help repair their injuries and cure their illnesses and walk at their side while they rehabilitate. But to fix them would mean to put them back exactly the way they were before they needed healing. The human body doesn't work that way. One way or another, the scars always remain."

"But you fixed Peeta! Jo wouldn't lie!"

Spencer shook his head. "I left a formula for a drug protocol that would help them heal his psychosis so he could be released from the mental ward, so he could continue to heal on his own. To fix him would mean to make it like it never happened, to take away all memory of it. That didn't happen. And we've helped Johanna get off the drugs that were acting as a crutch so she can continue to heal on her own now. But neither case fixed everything"

"But she doesn't deserve to be like this! She deserves a good life! She deserves to…to…" Kat closed her eyes and almost growled in frustration.

Spencer suspected he knew why she was frustrated, and it didn't have anything to do with the soaking wet, stiff button on her pants but he helped her with that anyway. "That's not the same thing. She needs to work out how she wants to relate to what happened in her life and move forward. She probably has fifty years of good life ahead of her, and we will do what we can to help her enjoy every year of it, but that's not the same thing. You can't fix someone, but you can help them make it right."

"Oh." Emotions, relating to others, were not her strong suit; it always took her a bit to understand. "Yeah, that makes sense. We have to help."

"We will." He helped her balance as she kicked off her boots.

"Because it was all my fault." She told him

Huh? "Where is that coming from?"

"If I hadn't thought up that trick with the berries, if I hadn't buried Rue, if I hadn't…"

Oh hell. He knew about the berries but who was Rue? Every time he thought he knew all of it…. "Shhhh. Stop." He took her by the shoulders and dipped his head to look into her eyes. "You did not create those situations. You should have not have been there. You made the best decisions you could, as did everyone else. What happened is not your fault or your responsibility. We're helping her because she's your friend." He ran his thumb over her cheek. "Remember, there are no mockingjays in these woods."

"But it's not fair!" She burst out in pure anger. "She went through all that and I got you!"

He pulled her in tight, marveling once again at her ability feel anger for everyone's situation but her own. "I think we can safely leave that part up to Morgan."


	18. Chapter 18

"Well, I feel like an idiot." Jo grumbled.

Once the rain had stopped, she had finally relaxed. Eventually she'd calmed down enough that they could leave the cave and head back to the cabin, Hotch moving on ahead to get the weapons secure and call in and, Morgan suspected, to get himself under control. Hotch would be all right eventually and he would handle it until then, Morgan knew that. But the woman at his side was still a mystery. "Don't. It's a reaction to trauma, not something you could help. Want to talk about it?"

"I don't even want to think about it." She replied.

"All right. When you're ready." They walked a while, with Jo casting little looks in his direction, until he finally had to ask. "What?"

"Just, you remind me so much of Finn, that's all."

"Who's Finn?" Then a light went on, the one person he had yet to hear her talk about. "Was he your boyfriend of something?"

Jo brayed out a laugh to the afternoon sky. "Hell no, I couldn't afford to make him my 'boyfriend'." She turned to walk backward a few steps. "He was my best friend." She corrected. "He won a few years before I did. Ended up in the same pile of crap, too dammed pretty for his own good. He was a rebel, too. We used to gather up all the secrets together."

"So he was a spy." He held his hand up as she turned to correct him, "And a vic-tim as well as a Victor." I get it. But you two never…"

"No. He did what he had to do to keep his family safe. But he only volunteered it with his girl back home, Annie; total soul-mates, those two." For a moment she looked into memories clearly too dark to be spoken of out loud. "The moment we were all free he married her. Knocked her up too, they have a beautiful boy."

"So they lived happily ever after?"

"No. He died in the war. Battle of the Capitol, no one ever told me how."

Damn it. "I'm sorry." All of this talking was supposed to ground her. He did not want her memories taking her back into that flashback.

"Hey, he died free and fighting. No regrets. Anyway, you remind me of him."

"Oh."

"Yeah, strong and gentle at the same time, all silver tongue and know-it-all." She turned to walk backward again and tugged the front of his shirt out of his pants. "Best abs I ever saw."

"Well, thank you." He grinned at the compliment.

"Killer smile," she chuckled and started walking face forward again.

They were quiet a while. "So, no boyfriend then?" Morgan asked.

Jo made an indelicate sound. "No. Who'd want me?"

"Anyone with half a brain?"

"Shit." She turned to look at him and shook her head. "Victor's kids get Reaped more than anyone else. And who would really want to settle down with a Capitol whore. Besides, I wouldn't. It would have been too dangerous; he would have been a target and a security risk."

"Yeah, but that was before the war. What about after?" Was there really no one there for you, he wondered?

"Nope. Only three guys I was ever interested in were off with other girls, one way or another. Actually Brainless in there hogged two of them." They were close to the cabin by now; she stopped under a tree, her arms wrapped around her middle. "Besides, no District guy would want me, I and wouldn't do Capitol."

No boyfriend before the war, no boyfriend after, and no District guy would have her. It didn't take long for Morgan to add that up, just like someone else had done for him once. "You know, it, uhh, only counts if you volunteer. And you enjoy it."

She looked up at him, all sharp. "What?" He didn't answer. "Oh, bullshit."

He'd tell her the whole idea of virginity actually meaning anything was nonsense, but instinct told him in her community it mattered and so it mattered to her. "No, seriously."

"Bullshit! I agreed to it!"

"Coercion. Doesn't count."

He watched her battle inside her own head as she thought about what he was saying. And he watched as she slowly understood and stood a little straighter. "So, what, are you volunteering?"

He chuckled. "My boss has literally gone nose to nose with some of the worse killers out there and only lost it once. You just had a flashback that scared the crap out of him. You really think you're healthy enough for that?"

"Good point."

"No, I'm just saying you've got nothing to be ashamed of there. And anyone who makes you think otherwise is wrong. You were put in a hard position and you did what you had to, that's all."

She looked him over, skeptical, but getting there. "And what if I did it to support the cause?"

"Then they ought to be honoring your service." She scoffed at that. "No, I mean it. You gave up a lot more than anyone ever should for that. You ought to be honored, not shamed."

She looked him over, still skeptical, but maybe, "Right."

He let it go. Sometimes people needed time to think.

Once inside the cabin they found that everyone else who had gotten soaked had changed, Hotch was just coming out of the bathroom while taking a towel to his hair, Reid was tending the fire, and Kat was at the stove stirring some reheated soup. "Sgt. Mason." Hotch looked over at her. "Are you all right?"

Jo nodded. "Yeah, I am. Thanks." She kind of drifted over to Kat's side, "Sergeant?"

"It's better than Soldier." Kat told her. "And it's not like you didn't earn it." She stirred the soup a moment. "I never said thank you, did I?"

"For what?"

"For everything. I don't think I…"

"Stop. We couldn't have won without you, Sparky. Not that I ever figured out why, but it's true."

* * *

Hotch looked over at Morgan. "Is she all right?"

"For now, but I wouldn't re-arm her for a while."

"We'll put them in the safe when we get home." Reid agreed.

Hotch looked at both of them and sighed. "You two know you can't do this on your own, don't you? You're not equipped and with the work we do if you try to you'll burn out fast."

By the time he was halfway through that the other two men were both shaking their heads. "I am not even going to try." Morgan said. "I am going to go beg Garcia for help on this one."

"And I'm going to see if Kat's therapist has any openings." Reid replied. "I've done all I can."

Hotch nodded. "Good."

* * *

"How much did you tell him about…everything?" Jo asked.

"Some. Not that much." Kat sighed. "Not as much as he thinks. I could tell it was all too much for him, he was getting overwhelmed. I guess it's one of those things where you have to be there or else you can only absorb little bits. After a while I just took Penelope's suggested and started writing it down to get it out of my head."

"Did that help?"

"Some." Kat stirred the soup a little more. "You know I don't remember how it ended. Was it all worth it?"

"You know they had this ceremony, on Reaping Day. In the Capitol they turned on all the screens and showed a picture of every child as some random Capitol citizen read their names. It went on all day and all night to get them all in. But in the Districts they had these fairs where kids could show off what they did in school, what talent they had. Lots of people got married that day. Everyone was thinking about a future. They started doing it every year, making the Capitol people watch us have a future while they remembered the dead." She was quiet a moment. "Yeah, it was all worth it."

"Where were you? Where was I?"

"I was at the Training Center." She chuckled at Kat's look of shock. "No, really, all the remaining Victors except you two got together in that garden on the roof and watched the show, watched the Capitol have to accept it all. We all got remarkably tight while we remembered. It was actually a good time, in a twisted sort of way. Haymitch said you two spent the day in bed, which I don't blame you for in the slightest. What did you do here?"

"I usually spend it in the woods trying to pretend it never happened."

"We're going to need to do more than that this year."

* * *

**Somewhere in Mexico**

**Pontius Fossman**

"Sir, I think we may have found a connection."

Fossman looked up from the video he was enjoying. God those Twos were just savages, what they did! And the Ones were so gorgeous! Put them together and just look at it! What he wouldn't give for material like that to work with. "Oh?"

"A file was recently sent from the Federal Police here to the Federal Bureau of Information in the United States."

"So."

"Well, I was looking in to it and I found this." He swiveled his screen to show the file on it.

The file was for a Reid, Spencer, PhD. "Reid. Reid. Dr. Reid. Dr. S. Reid." Fossman felt his smile growing. It was too late to stop what was happening, but perhaps not too late for… he paged through the file until he found. "Abernathy?" Oh please! He looked over at his first assistant. "Can you find a picture of Katherine Abernathy Reid for me?" A moment later a District of Columbia ID flashed onto the screen and both assistants gasped. He concealed his own shock. He didn't know how but he was not going to look a gift like this in the mouth. Oh, this was going to be lovely! "Contact El Jefe for me. We just suffered from a bad case of mission creep."

 


	19. Chapter 19

"So, this is like a Victor house?" Jo asked when she got out of the car.

They had spent the drive home listening to NPR while Jo and Mal napped in the back seat. She hadn't missed much, the view from the parkway looked like about every view from every highway or freeway or parkway in the US. Now they were home and it was all about stretching and letting the dog into the yard and hauling in boxes and bags. "Something like that." Kat told her. "Morgan lives next door."

"Cool. So, um, how do you go about getting your own place? Is there a place where you go for assignments or what?"

"Nope, you need coin, and lots of it, and a steady job which you are not going to be able to get yet." Kat sighed. Jo was District; the idea of taking charity would not sit well. Thankfully she'd thought ahead and discussed it with Spencer, who said he had a plan.

As predicted, Jo was not happy with this. "Great, so I'm going to live off you two like some poor relation forever?"

"Actually," Spencer interrupted as he moved past them to grab the house cooler. "Morgan's been saying he could use a housekeeper."

"A housekeeper?"

"Yeah," Kat checked her phone and dug the other cooler out of the back. "Keep the place clean, keep cooked food in the fridge, run the errands, it's not that hard. Besides they're gone most of the week. If you could live in the Capitol you can live here." She stopped to look at Jo, "Unless you had an Avox. Please don't tell me you had an Avox."

Jo shuddered. "No. No." She winced. "Do you…do you remember what happened to Darius after the Quarter Quell?"

"No."

"Good."

"What's an Avox?" Spencer asked.

Thankfully they didn't have to answer that. Another car drove up and a man dressed all in white got out. Kat switched over into all-business mode and she started haggling as hard as she used to in the Hob, back when it existed. Thankfully he buyer seemed to enjoy it as well. At the end of it he went away happy and she had a neat handful of script for her trouble. Once he was gone she came back over. "Your share," she said, handing Jo roughly half of it. "For the greens and the pheasant; something else you can do."

"So much?" Jo murmured, looking at the amount before shoving it into her pocket.

"Yeah, something about organic and no damage to the meat and no lead exposure; turns out being able to hit the eye is still valuable. He's going to charge ten times that for the dinner in his restaurant." Back to unloading, "So I figure housekeeper ought to come with room and board and some kind of coin besides."

"Okay." As soon as Spencer was out of earshot Jo grabbed Kat's elbow. "I don't know anything about being a housekeeper!"

"It's not that hard, I can show you." Kat huffed a little at the look on Jo's face. "Really, it's not. All you have to do is pay attention"

The houses stood side-by-side, sharing a common wall. In the front, the porches were separated by a low railing. Morgan's house was done in a crisp white with black trim, everything tailored and orderly. Kat and Spencer's was a soft, sage green with an almost creamy trim and flowers everywhere. No roses, not ever. Once inside she knew that Jo would see that they hadn't fixed it up too neatly, that they left some of the old finishes on the walls, on some of the cabinets and trims, that some of the furniture was clearly battered and worn. Otherwise it was lots of wood and old looking rugs and warm, bright colors and the kind of furniture you could snuggle into and not move all day. It looked cozy is what it did. Jo stopped to look at a quilt on the wall, enough brown to make it look old, but enough color to make it dance. "Where did you find this?"

"I made that." Kat replied. She'd put a ton of work into it to get the angles to line up just right. Even if it was out of scraps there was no excuse for a lack of precision. That would be like ruining the meat.

Jo looked at it for a long moment. "Bullshit." She muttered before turning and walking further in to the house. An archway with some kind of ornate wood trim and glass led to a dining room, with another arch on the other side that led to a large, sunny kitchen. The entire back wall was windows, looking out over a large yard that was almost all green. "This is nice." She commented.

"Thanks. We had to take out a wall, but we wanted a big kitchen."

"So I take it your hubby there likes to cook?"

"Um, no, I do most of the cooking."

Jo blinked at her. "And I suppose you're going to tell me that the garden out back is yours too."

"Yep."

Jo just looked at her a long moment. "Bullshit, brainless. Who the hell are you anyway?"

"What?"

"You don't cook, Katniss. Peeta cooks. He also cleans, and tends the garden and does all the sewing. You are not domestic, you never have been."

Kat looked like she was about to rip her friend's head off, but after a moment she sagged. "I don't know. After the first…year? Two? It just…well, it started feeling more and more like the right thing to do. Comfortable, you know? Spencer seems to think I'm filling in for Mom now that I can't get to her anymore."

"Horseshit! You and your mother can barely look at each other. You went through a war, spent I don't know how long in the burn unit at the end of it, then had to go on trial for assassinating Coin and only got off because you were declared mentally unfit, both crap and true, and at the end of all that your Mother went off to Four at the other end of the fucking country to look after Annie and her baby knowing full well that you can't turn around without hitting an Odair cousin out there. Not having her around didn't change a thing."

Kat sighed. "Look, I don't know, all right? All I know is that…I feel…happier when I'm…looking after things. That's all."

"It's just weird." Jo looked around again. "Where are all your books?"

"At the library; the way Spencer goes through them there's no point in buying them and he remembers everything he ever read. And he doesn't believe books should be held in private collections, they should be out where people can have access. We have some, sentimental value, the ones that I want access to, but otherwise."

"Ohhh no," Jo shook her head. "No no. You need a library. Everyone does. The more copies out there the better."

"Why?"

"What do you think they burned first?" They turned at a small noise of shock and saw Spencer in the doorway, his arms full of luggage. "Mags spent her whole life trying to put a library of forbidden books together, and it was not easy, even with a Victor's unlimited cash stream." A mischievous smile crossed Jo's face. "She let me read most of them."

Spencer turned and looked at his wife. "I think I just changed my policy on keeping books in a private collection."

Kat shrugged. "It's your coin. I won't complain though."

"So when do I get to do the whole housekeeper thing?" Jo asked.

"Morgan had to go into the office." Spencer told her. "I don't know when he'll be able to get to it. It might not be until the end of next week."

Jo grinned at them. "I can do houseguest for a week."

* * *

"I know why." Kat said much, much later.

Once they had unpacked and settled, shown Jo the guest room down the hall and had supper, eventually they had come up here and crawled into the big, soft bed that was theirs. As much as they loved the cabin it was still Gideon's place, and they were there on sufferance, his bachelor apartment had felt narrow and cold somehow. But this place and this bed was their refuge away from the world, into a place where nothing bad had ever been or would ever be. Now Spencer put his book down and rolled over to snuggle into the pillows and look at her, "Why what?"

"Why I became all…domestic when I came here."

"Why?"

She shrugged a little. "I don't think I want to talk about it yet. I don't think I can handle making it real yet. And I don't know what to do about it if it is."

"All right," she felt his arm go around her and draw her into his comfort. "When you're ready, I'm here."

 


	20. Chapter 20

Monday came at last, and with it Spencer and Morgan went formally back to work, thankfully only for the day today. That usually left Kat alone to settle into her usual routine, a routine that promoted steady, gentle comfort and good physical and mental health.

She fully planned on dragging Jo along on every step of the way, kicking and screaming if need be.

Jo had no problem with the wake up early part, or the healthy breakfast part. She also had no objection when they leashed up the dogs and cut out the back gate, through the law school grounds, and in to Rock Creek Park, home to miles of perhaps overly manicured grounds, but still some wild in the city. She was equally miffed that they couldn't bring the hunting bow out, it wasn't allowed in the park at all. In fact she didn't object to anything until they returned home and settled down to a snack of fruit, cheese and some tea. "There's something I need to go find." Jo announced at last.

"Oh?" Kat asked. "I was planning on going to the grocers today. Want me to put it on the list?"

"No. Well, yeah, real coffee, but that's not what I was thinking."

Kat made the long arm over and opened the cabinet that held Spencer's coffee supplies. "I'll tell Spencer to make a bigger pot in the morning. What were you thinking?"

"Thank you." Jo looked into her tea a quiet moment. "Back, um, when we were talking about what kind of government we wanted to have after the Capitol fell, Mags told us about this thing called a constitution. See, her Dad was an original rebel, back in the Dark Days, and he told her that it was the law, the thing that kept the government together or something. It was an actual document that all the Districts, or whatever they called them, agreed to and it had all the stuff about District representative actually running everything. She said he even saw it once, on display in the old Capitol, his grandparents took him, something about family tradition. If it's here I'd really like to see it."

Kat shrugged, pulled out her phone and hit speed dial, "Goddess of all things wise and wonderful. How're you doing, hun?" came the answer on the second ring.

"We're fine, Penelope, we're good. How is everything there?"

"Mounds and piles of paperwork everywhere; Hotch and JJ both have parent-teacher conferences today so they won't be heading out until tomorrow at the earliest. So, why are you tapping my wisdom today?"

"Well, Jo heard about this thing called the Constitution on display somewhere in the city, we were hoping to go see it. Do you have any idea where it is?"

"Yeah, in the National Archive, down on the Mall….hang on…" There was a voice behind her, and she muffled the phone to talk to it for a moment. "Hey, can you two wait until later this afternoon? The guys say they want to go with you."

"Sure. We can go to the market first." Kat looked over and nodded to Jo, they found it.

"Rodger dodger then. You have a date tonight!"

* * *

**The National Archives  
Washington DC**

Later in the afternoon Jo and Kat caught a bus to Union Station. There they met Morgan and Spencer, and caught the Metro over to the Archives. Kat kept her eyes on the sock she was knitting the entire time, keeping her breathing under control and trying to calm her beating heart. It's not going to fall down, she thought, millions of people take these trains every day. It's not going to fall down and nothing bad is going to appear on that screen over there either.

"You're doing great." Spencer murmured to her at one point.

She looked up long enough to give him a smile, realized that yes, this was a tunnel underground, and went back to her bright colored yarn.

"So you've never seen a copy of the Constitution before?" Morgan was asking Jo.

She shook her head, "Nope. Everyone was trying to find one. Mags said that her Dad told her that those were on the top of the burn pile."

"Mags?"

"She was the oldest…well, possibly anything. Her Dad was in the military before the Dark Days, he was an original rebel. She taught us just about everything we knew."

"Did she say how everything got started?" Spencer asked.

Just then they reached the station. Jo waited until they were at street level before answering. "Damn this city is pretty. According to Mags her Dad said something about how the president suspended a corps and then a posse because the building in the Capitol was destroyed in a hurricanoe. Some people were moved to the new Capitol, which was called…Benber? Benver? Then they signed some kind of treaty that made everything Panem. After that the people they didn't let move to the Capitol were sent to work camps that later became the Districts."

"I never heard any of this." Kat informed them. She'd never even guessed that Mags knew that much.

"Of course not, brainless." Jo retorted. "We had to keep everything a secret and you can't lie to save your ass. Haymitch knew."

"Good to know. Thanks for manipulating me by the way."

"Anytime, Sparky."

"Did that make any sense to you?" Morgan asked his colleague.

"Um, maybe. I've found that colloquial speech from the future is loaded with a number of eggcorns that can make it difficult to interpret meaning at first encounter." Spencer replied.

Morgan blinked at him. "Did  _that_  make any sense to you?"

Spencer ignored that and turned to Jo, "Hurricanoe. Do you mean hurricane?"

"Yeah, that's it! She said there was supposed to be all kinds of other things going on, drought, sickness, something called a financial crisis, all kinds of stuff, but the….hurricane was the last straw."

"Okay. So a hurricane destroys a building in the Capitol? Or the Capitol Building?"

"Capitol Building, that's right."

Morgan whistled. "For that to happen we're talking something like Katrina hitting DC. I can see that being a crisis."

Spencer nodded his agreement. "Ok, at that point the President suspended a corps…he suspended Habius Corpus?"

"Yeah!"

"Martial law, with a disaster like that you'd almost have to," Morgan nodded.

"Yeah, but nationally?" Spencer asked, "For an emergency in DC? Even in other localized areas? Article One, Section Nine, Paragraph Two: 'The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion or the public Safety may require it.'"

"Rebellion," Kat pointed out.

"Not then." Jo replied. "That was generations before the Dark Days."

"That is kind of a stretch." Morgan agreed.

"And then he suspended a posse…" Spencer thought out loud.

"Yeah," Jo nodded. "Something called a common posse, or a posse common."

"The Posse Comitatus Act?"

"Yeah!"

"That sounds familiar." Morgan said.

Spencer got that far away look, so much so that Kat had to steer him around a signpost. "' From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress.'"

"But Congress was destroyed." Morgan replied, before catching himself. "No, the Capitol _Building_ was destroyed. If something like Katrina was heading this way they would have flown the Congress critters out of the way."

"And arranged for them to meet somewhere else. The Constitution does state that Congress may only meet in the Capitol building, but that's to prevent one party with a super majority from sneaking off somewhere and voting in laws without the other side knowing. They could have declared any other building the official meeting place and carried on. It sounds like there was somewhere that was still clear…."

"Benber?" Morgan asked.

"…a city in the Rocky Mountains. Denver…"

"That's it!" Jo grinned at him.

"…which would still have a functional civilian court system." Spencer got that far away look again. "In Ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court decided that the suspension of habeas corpus was lawful, but military tribunals did not apply to citizens in states that had upheld the authority of the Constitution and where civilian courts were still operating. In essence, the Court ruled that military tribunals could not try civilians in areas where civil courts were open, even when the military had been authorized to detain individuals without trial. It observed further that during the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, citizens may be only held without charges, not tried, and certainly not executed by military tribunals; the writ of habeas corpus is not the right itself but merely the ability to issue orders demanding the right's enforcement. So we know they couldn't have declared it in Denver and there was probably more of the country where the court system was functional as well. They could have gotten away with martial law in the DC area but not the entire country. And claiming that Congress couldn't meet solely because the building was destroyed…"

"…sounds like someone trying to do an end run around the Constitution." Morgan nodded.

"A what?" Kat asked.

"They were employing something called the Shock Doctrine to take over the US government." Spencer replied. He sat on the steps in front of the Archive building to address the three blank faces in front of him. "The Shock Doctrine is a concept created by Milton Friedman at the Chicago School of Economics. It states that a small group of people can take over a country's economy or government by pre-positioning themselves in the levels of power just below the elected officials and then waiting for some kind of shock to hit the population, a war, a national disaster, an economic collapse. Once that shock occurs they can push through new policies before the rest of the government or the population recovers enough to counteract them. They were quite successful in Latin America in the 1970's, in the Tiger Economies during the Asian crisis in the late '90's, in taking over parts of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, especially the educational system, and you can see it happening in Europe now. Ideally they open the financial sector into a complete free market and use the military to put down any dissent."

"But it doesn't sound like this had anything to do with the economy." Morgan pointed out.

"No. The technique was being applied for another purpose." Spencer growled in frustration. "I'm still missing something! I can't complete the profile yet!"

"You'll get it, genus."

"Anyway, the whole point should have been moot because the National Emergencies Act of 1976 declared that no national emergency can last more than two years, and that lasted almost two hundred." He sighed. "Whoever they are, it sounds like they will successfully pull off a coup d'état against the United Stated Government."

 


	21. Chapter 21

"You know, that is not something I ever wanted to hear." Morgan said after a long moment.

"Me neither." Spencer agreed. "But it fits the data we have so far." He turned back to Jo. "Why were you all looking for a copy of the Constitution?"

"Because that was the whole point of the rebellion," she replied, looking as dejected as she felt at that moment. "We wanted to put it back, however that would work. But no one could find a copy; all we had were some notes and Mags' journals. One of the last things I remember hearing was that there were people coming from all the Districts except Thirteen to try to start it all over again."

"Except Thirteen?" Kat asked.

"They said they started out as another country and they were going to go back to that when everything settled down." Jo replied.

"Another country?" Spencer asked. "Do you know where they were located, um, relative to District 12?"

"Not really." Jo said.

"North," Kat told him. "Well, kind of north-east. They specialized in graphite mining before they were destroyed."

"Graphite mining and nuclear power," Jo added.

"Destroyed?" Morgan asked.

"Well, they weren't really destroyed." Jo sighed. "They started the first revolution, the Dark Days, when they wanted out of the first treaty that created Panem. That kind of got the ball rolling. But once they were free they stopped helping and we then lost the first revolution because the Capitol kept control of the air force. They were able to pick us off in the mountains. Once they quashed the first revolution the Capitol was going to go after Thirteen but Thirteen got control of some kind of nuclear weapons. They agreed to settle it by Thirteen moving underground so as not to tempt people into trying to get there."

"And they didn't help you all after that?" Morgan wanted to know. "Even knowing what was going on?"

"They were hit by some kind of sickness." Jo replied. "It decimated their population; it took decades for them to recover. Eventually they had everything in place, and then Sparky here set it off by standing up to Snow and distracting him."

"Toronto." Spencer said absently.

"What?" Morgan asked.

"Toronto. It fits the data, most of the graphite mining in North America is in eastern Ontario, there's a high concentration of nuclear plants around Lake Ontario, and Toronto already has a huge underground network of living, retail and manufacturing spaces. They call it the PATH system; it's designed to keep the city running under blizzard conditions. Granted I can't imagine you could pack all of eastern Canada into there, but given a war and an epidemic…"

"…there may not be that much eastern Canada left." Morgan finished. "How the hell did Canada get involved with all this?"

"I'm thinking it wasn't the Panem treaty at first, it was the Pan- _Am_  treaty, Pan-American. It was probably pushed onto both Canada and Mexico after the coup in the US. We do have the largest standing military in the world, bar none; they may not have had many options at that point. But I can't imagine the Canadian military allowing such abuses of human rights right on their doorstep. It sounds like once they obtained their freedom again they may have retreated intending to regroup but then an epidemic hit and they had to recover."

"I wonder what the epidemic was." Morgan mused.

"Lumps." Jo replied.

"Lumps?"

"Yeah, you know when your face swells up, and your nuts swell up if you're unlucky enough to be a guy. They said they thought it was bio-warfare, they had a lot of trouble rebuilding their population because it hit so many of the men."

Spencer smiled, "Another eggcorn. You mean the mumps."

"Oh."

Morgan looked over at Spencer. "The mumps can do that?"

"It's called orchitis, swelling of the testicles. It can result in atrophy and infertility."

"So where does all this leave us?" Kat asked.

"Well whoever leads the coup is probably at least in the initial planning stages now. They're probably pre-positioning people in various positions in government and are watching the shock doctrine events in Europe closely."

"Planning now?" Morgan asked. "Isn't that kind of ahead of the game?"

"Remember, we're not talking about the usual Unsub here. We're talking about a group of people, not exactly a conspiracy, more like a movement. And probably one that's been taking cues from the corporate world, it's not unusual for the most successful corporation to have multi-generational business plans that run a hundred years or more, passing from parent to child to grandchild. That's the kind of thing we'd have to be looking at to pull this off. But we won't be able to identify them without identifying their motivation, and we still don't have that."

"Okay, so can we stop it without that?" Morgan asked.

Spencer considered a moment. "I don't think we can stop it."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it wasn't stopped," Spencer sighed. "It's part of Jo and Kat's past, it's part of the past of everyone in their time, if we try to stop it now we'll create a massive time paradox."

"Which you've already done," Kat pointed out.

"I know. But that was a very, very small one and even then, the risk was enormous. This…this is like hydrogen bomb huge. If we did something to stop it now we could make it ten times worse."

"Spencer." Kat was suddenly too calm, revealing her deep anger. "One thousand seven hundred and twenty-five children are going to die and you are telling me that there is nothing we can do."

Spencer was quiet a long moment, not able to look at her. "One of the first things you learn when you become a profiler is that you can't stop an Unsub before he kills." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

Kat took a deep breath. "So what  _can_  we do?" She asked, quietly.

"Make sure it stays stopped, everywhere." Spencer looked at both women. "We only know what happened before Jo left. It sounds like they were calling a...a Constitutional Convention. What if they had some help?"

"What do you mean?" Morgan asked.

"Let me work on that for a bit." Spencer replied.

They all digested the depressing thoughts in the gathering dusk. "Well, I know one thing." Morgan said at last. "You weren't rebels." Jo chuckled at that. "You weren't."

"I think Snow disagreed with that." She pointed out.

"That's because he was on the bad side. Look, whenever someone takes an oath to this country they take it to the Constitution. 'I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States…"

"…against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." Jo finished it. "Mags made everyone who joined the rebels take the same oath. She said her Dad said it was important."

"That's the oath you have to take to serve in the United States Army." Morgan told her. "That's the same oath Reid and I had to take to become FBI officers. If you guys were taking that and meant it and planned to reinstate the Constitution as the law of the land, the Constitution that Snow and whoever preceded him had illegally set aside, then you weren't rebels, you were soldiers serving your country and fighting the enemy to set your fellow citizens free."

Jo chuckled and shook her head. "Please. We were taking an oath to something in Mags' journal. For all we knew she made it up."

"Uh-uh. Come here." Morgan got up, took her hand, pulled her to her feet, and with Spencer and Kat following, led her into the building.

The Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom is a grand and glorious space, with marble floors and marble columns, large murals and an immense dome overhead. All of it housed perhaps the most precious items in the country, six sheets of parchment carefully preserved and guarded. At this hour the Rotunda was nearly empty, so Morgan could lead Jo right up to one of the sealed display cases. "There it is." He said.

Jo just stared. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." She read the faded words. "It's real." Her head was reeling. She never thought she'd ever….she could feel the tears start to threaten.

"Yes, it is. And it always will be now, thanks to you." Morgan stepped behind her to pull her into his arms and look over her shoulder, to murmur so no one else in the vaulted space could hear. "So whatever you had to do you did right. You're as much a hero as anyone else honored in this town. Don't you ever put your head down again."

They stood like that a long moment, just marveling at it all, until they heard Kat chuckle from off to their left. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," She read, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness." She looked over at Spencer. "Who wrote this?"

"Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the nation. That's the Declaration of Independence, when we declared our independence from Great Britain. Representatives from all the colonies…the Districts of the time signed it."

Kat looked over at Jo. "I think they're right about the whole soldier thing. It sounds like the Founding Fathers would have been on our side."

"Yeah," Jo replied, her voice a little shaky. We did the right thing. Everything I did, everything I had to do, all of it, was all for the right reasons after all. "I guess so."

* * *

Once the two women were steady again they looked around while the men disappeared. They came back not too much time later. "Where did you go?" Jo asked.

"To get this," he handed her a small book, neatly bound, no bigger than her hand. "I thought you ought to have your own copy after all."

 


	22. Chapter 22

There comes a point, Spencer thought, when you kinda wish you hadn't come home.

The day after their outing to the Archives the team had been called away on a case in Tucson. As usual, it was gritty and ugly and dangerous. This one, however, had taken what felt like forever. They left on Tuesday and now it was Friday and they'd spent a stupid amount of time stuck on the ground at the airport while something was being dealt with on the runway. They were hot, they were tired, they were pretty much done in.

On the plus side, they had company for the night.

Will and JJ were supposed to be heading out of town for a few days, her birthday trip. They were leaving tonight, off to an undisclosed location, and coming back Monday. Unfortunately JJ's Mother couldn't come down to babysit Henry until tomorrow morning, and Garcia had a play tonight. That left him and Kat to babysit overnight. And given that they already had Henry adding Jack to the mix for a few hours so Hotch could spend some quality time with Beth wasn't hard to agree to. It was perhaps a bit problematic, given how Kat felt about children, but not impossible at all.

Except that they had been delayed on the ground in Tucson. And JJ hadn't been able to get a hold of Will.

He and Morgan had been delayed at the office, finishing up paperwork, so they reached the house somewhat behind JJ. Which was why, by the time they reached home, the battle was already ready to boil over.

"I am not cheating on you!" JJ was clearly shocked at the mere mention of it. Everyone in the neighborhood could tell, even though they were inside the house. "We were stuck on the tarmac in Tucson!"

"Oh, you expect me to believe that?!" Will hollered right back. "Look at this place! This must have taken Spencer hours to do! So where were you all that time?!"

Did you ever stop to think that Kat did it?"

"Oh come on JJ! You don't have to be a profiler to see how she looks at Henry and Jack. That woman hates kids! Now you're going to tell me she did all this for them?"

Spencer and Morgan just stood there on the front walk, trying to decide if they should break it up or not. It was one thing when it was civilians, but these were friends fighting. They were family.

They heard a familiar step behind them. "What's going on?" Hotch asked, a bit later since he had to go get Jack.

"The Kat is out of the bag." Morgan told him.

They finally gave it up and went inside. As Spencer had expected, the place was spotless. Every toy they had stored up for the boys to play with when they came over was carefully laid out. The coffee table was cleaned off; ready to hold any Lego creation they wanted. The dining table was neatly stacked with board games and cards. And past that the kitchen counter was stacked with cookies and cupcakes and recently refilled jars of candy. He didn't have to look in the fridge or pantry to know that they practically groaned with food, that they would be eating off the leftovers for weeks, freezing what they could. And the bedroom that Henry used when he stayed over was stocked with whatever might make him feel at home, from books to teddy bears to a nightlight ready to go. Even Mal and Clooney had gone to the groomers today, were fresh and clean for tumbles and cuddles. It was kind of kid heaven in here.

Kat was nowhere to be seen.

Of course the argument stopped as soon as they walked in.

"Um, actually this is all Kat's doing." Spencer stammered. "It's kind of a long story….."

* * *

**2940 Upton St #B  
Washington DC**

**Jo**

From the window seat at the end of Morgan's upstairs hall they could sit and watch the back yard. They were just keeping an eye on Henry as he and the dogs played around in the back garden. Cute kid, Jo thought. Too soft to make it past the cornucopia, but he had a few years to grow.

"They shouldn't argue like that." Kat murmured. "Not where he can hear."

Jo cradled her tea cup and looked over at her friend. She'd been quiet all day as she went about the preparations for tonight, drafting her friend in as donkey labor. They'd cleaned and put out toys, stopping to play with the incredibly fun ones for a bit. Then it was off to a market that had more food than she'd ever seen, even in the new Capitol. They bought so much they had to hire a car to get them home again. She'd sorted more of those amazingly fun toys while Kat cooked enough for a small army. Then it was off to pick up the dogs they had dropped off at the crack of dawn. Finally, just as a handsome blond man pulled up with a little boy in tow they had retreated over here. Now she was sitting there with a god dammed quilt she was working on in her lap, watching the boy in question play. "It's not going to kill him to know that his parents are human, brainless." She scoffed.

"He shouldn't have that." Kat looked at the boy with something so soft and longing and coated in grief that it almost hurt to see.

"What, your folks didn't fight?"

"No. Not like that at least." She sighed. "I wonder if they ever feel…guilty."

Guilty? "For what?"

"For having him." Kat nodded as a second boy ran out to join the first. "Having them. Fair warning, Jack is twelve."

Oh crap. Jo took a deep breath and turned to look at the newcomer. Tall, at least, and sturdy looking. "He's got the body to make it." She informed her friend. "Too soon to judge the skills. Why would they feel guilty though?"

"Because they were already doing the work that they do when the kids started coming. They knew there was a risk of Unsubs…monsters…following them home. They have, you know, both of them. Jack's mother was killed by one while he was in the house." Kat sighed and listlessly picked up her needle again.

"It looks like both kids came out okay."

"I just don't think you should bring a child into the world unless you can protect them until they're grown."

"Is that why you two haven't had any yet?" When Kat didn't answer, didn't even look up, Jo bent a little to find her eyes. "You think that man of yours isn't up to it?"

"It's not…." Kat frowned and shook her head.

"It's not? You know for someone who won the hearts and minds of a nation you sure can't communicate worth a damn."

Kat was quiet a long moment. Then, "I couldn't protect her."

Jo sighed. How the hell did she know? "It wasn't your job."

Kat looked up, finally, with a flash of anger. "Yes it was! She was mine!"

"No, she wasn't, unless you got into some kind of trouble when you were all of six. You know, there's a reason why kids usually come in families, there's supposed to be more than one person looking out for them. It sounds like you've got one heck of a family going on here, and so do they." Jo sipped at her cooling tea. "How the hell do you know, anyway?"

"If she'd made it that would have been the first thing you told me."

Damn. "We all dropped the ball, all right. You, your mother, Gale, Haymitch, Peeta, hell even me. None of us saw the danger until it was too late. But these people aren't blundering around making shit up as they go like we were. They know what they're doing. If they didn't those kids wouldn't even be alive, no?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I bet if you asked genius math boy down there to calculate the odds maybe they really would be in their favor. So they took a…a calculated risk with a lot better odds than anyone in a District ever had and so far it's paying off. Now are you going to put aside that stupid sewing that's giving me a headache to watch and go down there and take that risk or have you suddenly lost all that fire?"

Kat watched the boys a long moment more than started folding up her quilt. "You're still a pain in my ass Mason."

Jo grinned in return. "I never liked you either Sparky. That's why we get along so well."


	23. Chapter 23

There was one problem with going to their secondary lie with JJ, she actually did have the kind of connections at the Pentagon that might allow her to fact check their claim. And having Jo in the picture increased the odds of having to go to that lie. So to cover their collective asses Spencer had gone to the extraordinary step of having Garcia help plant some evidence. It wasn't at all fair, but as Garcia had pointed out, neither was having to go to a fake funeral. Now he looked straight at JJ and admitted, "I lied."

"About what?" She asked.

"Kat's background, she wasn't a college student when I met her."

"What was she?"

"Retired."

"From?"

"I can't tell you."

That had her blinking. "I beg your pardon?"

"JJ, you don't have a high enough security clearance." He pushed past her to the sink and deliberately avoided looking at anyone.

"I don't…." She sounded shocked and befuddled and almost…hurt. "Spence, I…."

"Look, all I can say…let's just say that there's a commander in Kandahar that misses both her and her unit a lot."

"A commander in…" He could see the light bulb going on over JJ's head. "Second Special?" He nodded and her eyes went wide. "Oh. That makes sense."

"Okay, now share with the rest of us." Will demanded.

"Um, well it is a clearance thing…" JJ was still thinking over the ramifications of this new information.

"JJ," Hotch said, quietly but insistently. "We're family."

JJ sighed. "All right, but this stays in this room. After 9/11, when we went into Afghanistan the Army realized that they didn't just need the regular Special Forces troops, they needed a battalion specifically designed for recon and intel ops. But after a while they learned that with all the cultural issues even that wasn't enough. So they put together what they called Second Special battalion. It was the first time they allowed women to train for Special Forces."

"Why keep that a secret?" Morgan asked.

Will chuckled. "If you'd heard some of my relatives going on about women in the military you wouldn't ask. As far as their concerned, women shouldn't be any closer to the front lines than a hospital or a secretary's desk. But that doesn't explain all of this."

"Actually it might." JJ told him. "Second Special would have gone in to areas with a high female population, which probably meant a lot of kids." She turned back to Spencer. "She hasn't been working out a bad home life; she's been working out a case of PTSD hasn't she? No, don't answer that." She held up a hand to stop him. "If you don't say anything you don't break your clearance. I'm guessing kids are a trigger."

"She really does love them though." Spencer insisted. "She thinks Henry is wonderful. And she really doesn't mind having them over."

"But that does explain why she heads over to my place until he passes out for the night." Morgan added.

"Yeah it does." JJ turned back to Spencer. "Just tell me…I read in that report that the unit was disbanded after an attack, something about some members ending up as POW's for a time. It would be massively embarrassing to the Pentagon if that got out. Please tell me…"

Spencer shook his head very decisively, "No, not at all. She was the last one in the unit, she served for about a year and then she was given an honorable discharge. Convince of the government. She can't say more. But I, um, suspect she can't say the same about her friend Jo." He finally looked at the two confused faces in front of him. "Staff Sergeant Johanna Mason. She's not Kat's cousin, they served together. She needed a place to stay in the area while she accesses some resources, that kind of thing."

"Of course," JJ murmured. "If there's anything I can do…"

"Thanks. "

"So where did you two meet then?" Will asked.

"Vegas, I was honest about that. She was on a camping trip, I went out on an astrology trip, I ended up near her campsite, found out she lived not far from here, and we just hit it off. But the point is she actually did fix up the house for Henry's visit and we really were stuck in Tucson. "

"Right," Will pointed out. He looked over at JJ. "Forgive me for being an ass?"

JJ sighed. "Yes, but I think we really need this time away." She went to the back door to call Henry in for hugs and kisses, and in a few moments they were gone.

The three men left let out a sigh of relief. "I cannot believe she bought that." Morgan said.

"Well it helps that Garcia made it look like that report went to the wrong mailbox." Spencer pointed out. "We'd hoped she'd glance at it before deleting it, she usually at least looks at every file she gets."

"I don't see why we couldn't just tell her." Morgan replied.

"No." Hotch told them. "JJ does not need to live with this."

"Well, it's not like anything bad is going to happen right away." Spencer told him. "Go on, you don't want to be late." And after saying his good-byes Hotch was out for the evening as well.

Morgan and Spencer followed Jack out to the back porch. It was one long porch, separated only by the edge between the two paint jobs, a screen that could be moved for privacy and two very different styles of furniture. Kat and Spencer's side was all cozy cottage and rugged, with distressed paint, bright cushion, wind chimes and lots of flowers. Morgan's side was comfortable, but in sleek lines and modern shapes. It was there that they found Kat and Jo watching the boys play. "Hey." Spencer dropped onto the bench next to his wife. "Does this mean you're hanging out with us tonight?"

"I'm…going to try." Kat said. Even as she watched the boys he could see her eyes gently welling up. "He just reminds me so much of Prim and I know how much he means to you and I just don't…"

"Hey." Jo interrupted her. "What did I just say to you, brainless? You shouldn't have had to keep Prim safe all by yourself and you don't have to keep these two safe all by yourself either. You've got family now, right?" She looked up at Morgan and Spencer, all but ordering them to agree with her, which, of course, they did.

"It's not just that." Kat replied. But then she fell quiet and clearly wasn't going to go a bit further until she was ready.

In the meantime Morgan looked over at Jo, "How about you, you hanging out tonight?"

Jo gave an almost feline shrug. "Why not, I'm already going to have nightmares. And those toys looked like fun."

"If I bring a TV out are you two going to freak?"

"Yes!" Kat and Jo said in unison.

Spencer looked at Morgan and grinned even as he sighed; "One step at a time."

None of them noticed the tree trimmer outside the back fence. And none of them noticed the camera he was holding.


	24. Chapter 24

A few weeks later it rained.

Nothing like a sweet summer rain Morgan thought as he rounded the gate and headed in to his backyard after his morning run. Cleans out the air, lowers the humidity for a little while at least. He let Clooney off the leash to go do his thing and headed for the porch where his housekeeper was sitting with coffee, watching the water fall from the sky.

Reid had been right about the luxury of having someone to take care of the house for him. He no longer had to worry about cleaning up or doing laundry on his days home. He no longer had to run errands. He no longer had to worry about someone looking after Clooney. Even if they had back-to-back-to-back cases all he had to do was swap off go-bags at the office assistant desk down in the lobby at Quantico (office assistant, best job perk ever) and head on out again. Yeah, it cost him a little, what with paying Jo and making sure she had insurance and all that, but it was utterly worthy ever penny.

He also enjoyed her company. That woman had sass, she kept him in line like his sisters used to, not taking an ounce of crap from anyone. And she was smart and easy to talk to, not all quiet and low-key like her friend next door. Not that quiet and low-key was bad, it obviously worked for Reid, but he liked a woman who could give it back, you know. Jo might have never had a shot at an education, but she was his equal in every way and it showed. Give her a degree, he thought, and some experience and she'd be out there kicking Unsub ass with the rest of us. Kat's smart enough, sure, and has the skills but she just doesn't have the temperament that Jo does. And she was looking to catch up on that education as well. Unlike Kat Jo was deeply well-read, with highly eclectic tastes that would help when she started at GWU next fall, something that had her thoroughly tickled. "Always wanted to," she'd said when they proposed it. "District citizens weren't allowed to go. Fuck yeah, I'm going."

So now if anyone asked, Jo was a retired vet, sleeping in his spare room and working as his part-time housekeeper while going to school full-time and working with a VA counselor; a tidy little packet of almost-truth.

Except that it was almost-truth, not truth. Truth was a woman sitting on his back porch, watching the rain with a longing that ached to see. He stopped a few feet off the porch and looked at her. "So come on out." She wanted to, he could tell. It was written in every line under her skin. But there was also deep fear in her eyes. She gave another longing look but quickly shook her head. "No one's going to hurt you. No way I'd let them." Maybe. Maybe. "Just for a second, just to give it a try." Maybe….but just as she took that deep breath and stood up the rain stopped. He watched the anger and hurt come into her eyes as she dropped her head. "What? Next time, it's supposed to rain tomorrow."

"I hate it when he wins." Jo told him.

Him. Snow. "You think he made it stop raining?'

She scoffed at him, "Of course not. It just feels that way." She'd settled back on the porch, now he came up to join her. "At first I figured it was interrogation, right, so don't tell them, but then I figured the Rebels knew we'd been captured so they'd changed everything I knew so it didn't matter anymore and told them to try to get it to stop. Then I started making shit up. Finally I realized that it didn't matter at all, they were just doing it because they enjoyed it." She looked down into her coffee. "They shredded everything good in my life just because they fucking enjoyed it. Just because I was a challenge."

There are turning moments in anyone's healing. Morgan sensed Jo was at one of those, one where she felt strong enough and safe enough to start taking back some of her power. "So, take it back. You know the drill; the shrink laid it out for you. Take back what you can, mourn what you can't."

She laughed at him. "You make it sound so damn easy, you know that."

It wasn't, he knew that. But at the same time he could tell that she needed it to be, and it could be, if he could just figure out what else was mixed in here. Ok, so approach it as a profiler, why this victim at this time. "Why were you a challenge? How come he didn't go after any of the others? You said there was another woman in there with you, Annie?"

"She didn't know anything, they knew that."

"Ok, but she was another Victor, right? So why didn't they make her whore around too?"

Jo shrugged. "Finnick stood up for her."

Morgan settled back and considered this. "And Kat had a fiancée who stood up for her, right?"

"Yeah," Jo chuckled. "You do not know how much I envied her that."

"So who stood up for you?"

"No one," Jo chuckled. "Why would anyone stand up for me?"

"Because you deserve it; everyone does." Ok, now he saw it. He stood up and offered her his hand. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Come on." She put her hand in his letting him tug her to her feet. He led her upstairs to his bathroom which he'd had retrofitted with one of those big spa showers that hit you from all direction, all dark stone tile and glass. She took one look and he could feel the fear go through her. "No one's going to hurt you."

"You don't know that." She wasn't exactly talking in the present there.

"Yeah, I do." She looked at him with wide, confused eyes, but he just nodded. "You just said that they didn't go after women who had someone to stick up for them. Snow went for the easy targets, just like any Unsub, women who were alone on one level or another. So, now you're not alone. I'm standing up for you; I've got your back. And I'd get in his face if I had to."

"He'd kill you." She pointed out, but he could see the wheels turning in there.

"He'd try. But I think he'd back down first. He did for Annie and Kat." She turned and looked back at the shower. "I'll go with you if you want. Show you it's safe." She turned and looked back at him with those too big eyes, then nodded slow.

All right then

He got the temp just right before getting in, hot but not too hot. And since this wasn't going to be that kind of shower he left his undershorts in place. He got under the spray and waited a minute, then turned around. "See. Nothing hurts. Come on in, I hope you don't mind my soap." It still took her a minute, and she kept her own underwear on, but eventually, warily, she carefully stepped in beside him. For a moment she just trembled there as the memories started rocking her. "Just breathe, Johanna, just breathe and stay with me. You're not then, you're now."

He didn't expect her to turn and wrap her arms around his waist and hang on that tight.

He didn't push her away. He held her there as she gasped and fought off the memories and shook with the fight of it. He held her there while the sensation of water and safe and warm body overcame the memory of humiliation and pain. After a long few moments her breathing evened out and slowly, slowly the tension went out of her frame. Slowly, slowly she leaned against him and relaxed. Not an end, he thought, but maybe a beginning at last.

And then she turned her face up to look at him and then up into the water. "Pass the damn soap."


	25. Chapter 25

It was highly unusual for Spencer to come home at a specific time and not find dinner underway. It wasn't that he insisted that Kat cook, he always told her to sort her own schedule, cook when she wished, just leave him something to heat up, please, but when she knew he was going to be home around dinner time she usually arranged it so they could eat together. It was polite, she argued, and important for married people and just the right thing to do. And over the years he'd come to expect it, he expected to come home after a day of work to a house filled with warmth and light and music and good smells as Kat bustled about the kitchen, creating magic. So when he saw from the sidewalk that the house was cold and silent and almost dark, he knew right off that something wasn't right.

Kat was sitting at the dining room table, a mug of tea gone cold at her elbow, only the light on above it and that up bright. She was looking at what was lying there, studying it with a look of pain and deep anger and something far more lost and alone than he'd ever seen. Finally, he thought, after all these years of therapy maybe she's finally hitting that breakthrough she's needed. Then he got a look at what was on the table.

It was her Mockingjay uniform.

She'd retrieved it from the safe upstairs, had laid it out on the table, and probably after a close examination, had opened up an area at the shoulder. Lying on top of it was a silver cylinder, maybe half an inch wide by a good three inches long. "What is that?" He asked, skipping over the greeting and getting right down to the matter in a way he knew she'd prefer.

"A tracker," she told him. "They call them GPS devices today."

"Did you know it was in there?"

"No. But after talking to Jo earlier I started suspecting and so I went looking for it."

"How did Jo know it was there?"

"She didn't. She told me how Prim died." She didn't look up. "She didn't last the end of the war."

Ah, now it was making more sense. He sat opposite her, where he could hold her hand if she wanted. "How did she die?"

"Doing what she always wanted." Kat sighed. "Coin assigned her to a unit as a medic. Someone told the Capitol parents to bring their children to the President's mansion, that they would be safe there."

"Human shield," Spencer bit the inside of his cheek to keep from raging.

Kat nodded. "Someone….Coin…dropped small bombs on the crowd of children. The Rebel medics went in to help, and then someone…Coin…dropped a larger set to take them out as well."

"A secondary device to take out the first responders, that's a common terrorist tactic." He remembered how that was used against them, during the terrorist incidents in New York that time.* "Wait, your sister was, what, thirteen? What was she doing in a battle zone? Your side couldn't have been short bodies and she couldn't have had that much training yet."

Kat nodded at the device on the table. "How do you catch a predator?"

Spencer just blinked for a moment as the link between his knowledge base and hers wove a little tighter. "Bait a trap with their young." That was how she realized the tracker was in her uniform. "Coin was trying to kill you."

"I thought Prim was safe in Thirteen. I left her there thinking she was safe. I didn't see the real threat until it was far too late." Kat made a faint sound he'd never heard her make before. "What the hell kind of… I have been trying so hard to make a perfect world for her; a comfortable house, a healthy life, going to school so she can look up to me. All this and I couldn't….I couldn't even keep her safe."

She was crying, he realized. She cried so rarely, usually when she missed her family, her sister. But she was never the kind to want soft words and cuddles for those tears. He skipped over the obvious point, to the deeper one. "Where was your Mother during all this? Why did she give her approval for her daughter to go anyway?"

Kat looked up at him finally, anger flashing in her eyes. "It wasn't her responsibility! It never was! She lost that after Dad died and she gave up! Keeping Prim safe was my job!"

He studied her for a long moment, seeing the despair she was barely holding in, seeing how easily she could spiral into depression right now. He skipped right over the most obvious point in that one as well, and knowing her, went straight for the heart of the matter to stop that descent before it began. "Snow's winning."

"What?"

"Look, you're not the only one who's been talking to Jo. She's a good ten years older than you are, and she had a good ten years in there, before and after the war, to study the world around her and how it worked. How many times were food shipments and heating supplies cut off before winter got underway, just when they should have been increasing to build up a stockpile before the weather shut the trains down? How many times did an illness sweep through right after someone from the Capitol visited or a new crop of Peacekeepers moved in? Snow and his predecessors deliberately engineered circumstances to maintain a twenty to twenty-five percent childhood mortality rate, which is immense."

Kat stopped spiraling, at least for the moment, he could see it. "Why would he do that?"

"To cause psychological injuries in the population; parents can't protect their children, children can't rely on parents, no one dares bond with anyone, everyone feels helpless and incapable, and so no one rebels." He looked into her eyes and saw why he loved her. "Prim made you the Mockingjay."

"Huh? How?"

"Agency, you were the only one who thought she was capable of doing something, of getting yourself out of a hopeless situation. You figured it out the first time because you loved your sister, so you went through the fence to feed her and save her. There's a direct line between doing that and being successful to what you pulled with Peeta and the berries. You did that because you knew you were capable and so you stuck with it until you figured out a way. And everyone else saw your example and realized that they could figure it out too."

Kat blinked at him. "I never thought of that."

Spencer reached over and took her hand. "You were about to ask what the hell kind of mother can't keep her children safe, weren't you?" She nodded. "Most therapists would point out that you weren't her mother, that it wasn't your responsibility to keep her safe. But given that you were her primary caregiver right through puberty, a time when bonding hormones are at some of their highest levels, the reality is that in a very real way she was your child. And if you let her loss make you give up on everything, then Snow wins because that's his desired result. He wins every time the loss of a child makes a parent give up on the future. And Coin wins because you specifically give up."

He watched as she absorbed this, and dried her eyes. "So what are you saying?"

"Don't give up. Mourn her, it's an impossible loss, but don't give up. Move forward knowing you won't make the same mistakes in the future."

She scoffed. "You're so sure of that?"

"Yes. You said you thought she was safe in Thirteen. She was only as safe as the adults around her, all of whom had gone through the same hell, all of whom never learned how to bond with a child. Did anyone in that world believe that children were a special class, needed to be protected?"

"No. How could you believe that and send them off to the Reaping or ask them to work or…" She blinked as it clicked in. "They weren't looking after her. I thought Mom and Haymitch and all the others would, but they didn't even think of it."

He shook his head. "And you asked why you didn't see the real threat?"

"I was fixated on Snow, and probably too young. I know I was too inexperienced." She groaned and rested her head in her hands a moment. "And I thought I could fixate because Prim was safe. Given all that I'm amazed I kept her alive that long."

"Not to mention your own raging case of PTSD." He pointed out. "But these are all issues that won't come up again. You're a lot healthier, you're in a cohort of adults who truly get that children are a special class that should be protected and that same cohort has a ton of experience to bring to bear to identify threats. I know you've been wondering why Hotch and JJ dared have children. That's why. They knew that in the main the people around them are safe with children, that they had a good chance of protecting them, and that if they gave up on their dreams, the Unsubs win." He smiled. "You won't make the same mistakes in the future."

She sighed. "Prim's not coming back; she never was."

Okay, he thought, we are not delusional. "So why have you been doing all this?"

"Because she would have wanted this for…. Because I…I want this for…"

Five years on and neither one of us is going to say this right out. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a sheaf of paper, laying it on the table in front of her.

"What's this?" She asked.

"It's a paper out of Simon Frasier University. They're developing a diagnostic test for the genes for schizophrenia." He watched her jaw drop as the realization that it had been brewing in the back of his head too came to her, "Something to think about; in the meantime, Thai food for supper?"

 


	26. Chapter 26

In later years Spencer would come to realize that he should have expected something like this.

He and Morgan were just getting in from teaching a class at Quantico, a simple, average, ordinary thing to do on a simple, average, ordinary day. The first indication that everything was going sideways was the tension when they walked into the office. "What's going on?" Morgan asked.

Anderson looked over. "Apparently just after Agent Hotchner left home this morning a group of men entered the house and kidnapped his son."

"What!?" Morgan headed for Hotch's office, with Spencer right behind him. Spencer's adrenalin was just pumping, even as his stomach dropped. Was it an attack against Hotch specifically or against the entire team? And if it was the team then what about…. "Do you see JJ?"

"No. "

Crap.

They made it as far as the catwalk when Hotch, JJ and Rossi found them. Hotch only had to look at their faces. "I take it you're heard." Hotch was stone faced as usual, but they knew him well enough to know that he was frantic. And JJ was far too pale. "Will's on his way here, they took Henry as well." And the bottom started falling out of Spencer's world.

"They're going after the team?" Morgan wasn't really asking a question.

"I don't know." Hotch replied. He looked over at Spencer, who already had his phone out. "Call…"

"On it." He was already calling Kat. "They were taking the dogs to the park as we left, I'll tell them to come straight here instead of going home."

"What if they jump them in the park?" JJ asked.

"Not worried about that." If anyone tried to jump Jo and Kat in a non-urban setting he'd be more worried about explaining the bodies to DC Metro.

But before they could answer Hotch's phone rang. "It's him! It's him! Line two!" Garcia all but screamed.

They all headed into Hotch's office to listen. "This is Agent Aaron Hotchner." He said when he clicked on the line. "What do you want?"

"Simple, Agent Hotchner." The voice had an odd accent, too high pitched for a clearly male voice and the vowels were off, the 's' sound was too much of a hiss and the speaker's voice went up at the end of the sentence like it was a question. "Gather your team, including your tech. Go to your conference room, close the windows and lock the doors. And wait."

"Wait for what?" But there was no reply. The caller had rung off.

Rossi was shaking his head. "Not long enough for a trace." He pointed out. "What shall we do?"

Morgan shrugged. "Go to the conference room and wait for him to communicate again."

Moments later they were all assembled in the conference room. The blinds were closed and the doors locked by the expedient method of shoving chairs under the levers. That done, they stood there and waited. Rossi was the first to break the silence. "Okay, now what?"

At that moment something shifted.

The smell of ozone laced the air.

"Do you smell that?" JJ asked everyone.

There was a crackle as they nodded. "Maybe he's setting the electronics on fire?" Garcia moved to have a closer look at the smart board.

More ozone and another crackle. Then another and a bright flash of light well above the table.

They all looked up.

Somehow. Somehow, in the middle of the room, space was…swirling.

Spencer felt his heart stop.

"What the hell?" Morgan

Garcia's eyes widened, "Oh my god!" She looked over." Oh my god! It's happening again!"

There was another crackle, and lightning shot out of the hole, and then again.

"What is it?!" JJ yelled over the sound.

It was happening again. Somehow it was happening again. "It's a time vortex!" Spencer called out.

The lightning flashed, a dark hole opened, and a small object fell through and bounced on the table. And then the whole thing disappeared as if it had never been.

 


	27. Chapter 27

 

Kat hung up the phone and stared into space as her world calmly fell apart. It was Prim all over again, except this time she hadn't had a chance to volunteer at all. What were they going to do?

"Wake up brainless!" Jo called out as she barreled through the door. "We have work to do. I assume pretty boy called you?" Somewhere along the line she'd heard Morgan's nickname for Spencer and it stuck.

"Yeah, he did." Panic was a drug settling into her veins, making her heavy and helpless. All she wanted to do was find some rope and tie knots. Or maybe knit, it was almost the same thing.

"Now stop that!" Jo whapped her gently on the side of the head, jolting her back to reality. "Don't make me really hit you again. Look, they are going to need us, all right. No one else here has faced what the Capitol can throw at people but us so we have to be involved. On the plus side, we've already survived twice so the odds are definitely in our favor."

"Good point."

"That's because I'm brilliant." Jo gave her a grin that was all bravado to hide bone-deep fear. "Now, where are your camping supplies, this time we're going packed."

* * *

**BAU Headquarters  
FBI building  
Quantico, VA**

**Spencer**

"You lied to me?!" Spencer could hear the shock and hurt in JJ's voice. "You all lied to me?!"

"JJ," Hotch sounded so apologetic, so wounded. "I honestly thought it was centuries in the future. I…I never thought Henry or Jack were ever in any direct risk."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

Hotch was silent a long moment. Then, "Do you hope to be a grandmother someday?"

Spencer didn't have to look to see the horror that was coming in to JJ's eyes.

Right now he was busy at a whiteboard. The item that had fallen through the time vortex turned out to be a simple thumb drive. But the encoding on it was far from simple. He was tackling the password issue while Garcia was going at it electronically at a remote station she'd wired into the conference room. Neither had any doubt that they'd get into it in just a few…. "Okay, try this one Garcia." He stepped back so she could see the answer.

"And…and…got it, we're in." Through their combined efforts the encoding broke like a cracked egg and the files finally fell open. "Okay, it looks like I have…holy Hannah I have seventy-five video files, all of them exactly three hours long. And then I have a….okay, it's a live feed from somewhere, but it's just this."

Just this was a slowly spinning gold emblem against a black background. Garcia pulled a screen shot without asking, it turned out to be a stylized, very militant eagle set in concentric circles. Across the top in gold letters was written  **Time to Beginning of Countdown** , and a timer was counting down about ten hours.

"What does that mean?" JJ demanded. "It's already counting down."

"It means we have that minus thirty minutes to find them," said a voice from behind the group. They turned and found Kat Reid and Johanna Mason standing there staring at the screens, the creeping horrors haunting their eyes. Jo looked over at JJ. "Thirty minutes before the official countdown begins they seal the Arena. Our chances of getting in at that point are pretty much gone."

"Arena? What Arena?" JJ looked confused. "They said you were soldiers from…from the future."

"We were." Kat said quietly. "We were fighting against the games."

"What games?"

"Those games," she nodded at the list of videos. "Those are probably the highlight reels. Trust me," She looked a little green around the gills. "You don't want to watch them. Not if you ever want to look at a screen again."

"What?"

Rossi stopped her panic. "Let's figure out where we're going first, we can save the in depth explanations for when we're underway." He looked over at Garcia first. "Garcia, you're about to get a call from a tech at the NSA, I called in a favor over there, they're going to loan us some satellite time if we need it." Then he looked at Jo. "If you don't mind I'm going to stick with Sergeant Mason given that you're acting like one. What are we looking for, what does an Arena look like?"

Jo settled thought a moment. "Well, in the beginning they just used sports arena. But after the first three or four years, that got boring, so they started refining the system and building bigger ones. When we were in they were about five klics across, surrounded by an energy dome."

"Okay, that's something a satellite can pick up. What's the terrain like?"

"It could be anything. My first and Kat's first were both wooded areas, I was in a pine forest, she was in temperate deciduous wood." She shrugged when Rossi's eyebrow went up. "My people were lumberjacks. Our second time around we were in a manmade jungle with a saltwater lake in the center. Really, it could be anything or anywhere, they've had mountains, desert, tundra, bombed out urban areas, anything."

"Okay, that doesn't help much. Outside of the terrain are there any common features?'

"Well, every Arena has a cornucopia. Thirty minutes before launch they take you to a holding cell under the Arena and lock the Arena down, at that point no one goes in or out until they let the stylists out after launch. Thirty seconds before, they load you into a launch tube, a kind of narrow elevator that lifts you up into the arena. You end up on one of twenty-four platforms evenly arrayed around the cornucopia, a shelter loaded with supplies and weapons of all kinds…"

"…but never a gun." Reid finished for her.

"Yeah."

They all looked at each other as Hotch turned and practically ran to his office. A moment later he came back with the file from Mexico. "Something like that?" He asked both women as he pulled out the pictures.

They looked and both went pale. "Yeah," Jo nodded. "Those are Arenas; primitive, like the early ones, but yeah. Cornucopias, platforms…" She looked at the pictures of the warehouse in Hermosillo. "…bloodbath."

"Garcia," Hotch sounded much more confident now that he at least had a direction, "Contact Víctor Navarro. Explain that we think that the gang behind this has become aware of our involvement and is targeting the team and tell him we're on our way there. And when the satellite comes on line have them start looking over north eastern Mexico."

"And Garcia," Spencer suddenly had an idea. "Contact whatever company manages the power grid down there. Have them look for a rural area that's suddenly sucking down massive amounts of electricity. If they haven't used any of their technology yet, they may have saved it for their end game."

"Can do, will do. And I will sit on this feed and keep it flowing to you and let you know if anything else changes."

"All right," Hotch looked at them all, "Wheels up in thirty."

 


	28. Chapter 28

It had been one hell of a flight. Along the way he, Kat and Jo had explained everything, from his theory on how the original coup d'etat had begun to what their world was like well after the second revolution. But of course everyone fixated on the actual mechanics of the Games. And one point stopped them all cold. "So once this arena is locked they won't open it until there's only one left alive?" JJ asked.

Jo and Kat nodded. "Exactly," Jo told her.

JJ and Hotch just looked at each other as the despair overtook them. If both Jack and Henry were locked in there…

"Hey, stop it. Both of you," Morgan told them. "We're going to make this work."

"There's one thing I don't understand." Rossi said after they were done. "Reid, you said that it would take a massive amount of power to open that…that time vortex, correct?"

"Yes. About as much power as it takes to operate the city of Denver for as long as it has to remain open, at least for something the size of a human body. I doubt it took nearly as much for the thumb drive that came through."

"Right. Now, originally Kat fell through the vortex, that took the power from Denver, then when you did your paradox thing it reset the trap and then five years later Johanna here fell through. But if our Unsubs are these, what do you call them…?"

"Gamemakers," Jo stepped in. She held up the pictures from Mexico, "Probably a team of them to carry this off."

"…Gamemakers, then how did they get here?"

Good question. Spencer considered this. "Well, they would have had to have access to the technology, and probably their own power plant."

"Can't be," Jo said. "The Coalition has control of all power facilities. And we executed the Gamemakers for war criminals."

"Maybe they were sent back before the war." Hotch suggested.

"I don't think so." Jo held up one of the tablets with the files off the thumb drive on the screen. "Those are probably highlight reels from the different games. They have the seventy-fifth in there, the war started during that one."

"So how did they do it?" Rossi asked.

Spencer had to admit, he was stumped. "I don't know yet."

Eventually they landed in Hermosillo, where they found a military escort ready to take them off into the middle of nowhere. In the middle of nowhere they found a lot more people than they expected, an abandoned village, and something else. "What is that?" Morgan asked as they drove up, and gaped.

All around the village, evenly spaced about twenty feet apart, were sleek black pillars about ten feet tall. And from the sides of each pillar blue lines of something that looked far more substantial than laser light radiated to the next pillar in the row, effectively forming a fence of light around the village. "An Arena border," Jo informed them. "It's still open."

"That's open? Morgan asked.

"ARENA CLOSING IN TEN MINUTES." announced a loud, female voice.

As Jo and Kat moved to the back of the SUV and started sorting supplies the BAU team just looked at each other. Captain Victor Navarro came up to them. "We haven't found the boys yet." He said, getting right to the point. "We got out here and found this, we don't know if it's explosive or what. With the kids we didn't even dare try to cut power. That voice just started up at the half hour."

"We have to find a way to get in there and get them out!" JJ insisted, her voice threaded with the beginnings of panic.

"Yes, but we don't want to blow them up in the process." Hotch pointed out.

"Hey Morgan," Morgan turned and found Jo looking at him, a full backpack in her hands. "Was all that crap about having my back for real, or were you just trying to get in my pants?"

"It was real." Morgan reassured her. "Why are you asking now?"

She held up the backpack in offering and then headed back to the SUV. Spencer followed and found both women getting ready to go in. "Any chance at all of getting you to stay here?" Kat asked him again, a certain amount of pleading in her voice.

"Nope," he replied. "Henry needs me and I'm not letting you face this alone." He smiled at her. "I'm not Peeta, I actually have some skills." He started getting into a pack and gathering what he thought might be helpful.

"I hope so."

"ARENA CLOSING IN SEVEN MINUTES."

As they finished Jo murmured to Kat. "You know, brainless, I never thought I'd volunteer to go into one of these things."

"I have." Kat pointed out. "It's probably love, you know."

"Let's not go there." She looked at the others and raised her voice. "Shall we?" With that she turned and headed for the fence.

"ARENA CLOSING IN FIVE MINUTES."

"Sergeant Mason!" Hotch called when he saw where they were going. "What are you doing?"

"Getting your son back," Jo replied. "Stay here and try to work it from this side. I left some notes on your tablet that might help."

"Wait!"

But there was no time to wait. At the fence Kat dropped her pack, and then just as she had at the District boundary so many times she swung her leg over a blue line like it was wire and slid her way through the fence. "Be careful." She said to the others. "The lines are hot."

Morgan went through next, and then they started handing packs and weapons through. Eventually it was Spencer's term. "I don't have your balance." He reminded his wife. But with her hands carefully guiding him he made it through. Once on the other side he looked into her eyes, saw the deep fear in there, and brushed the hair from her cheek. "We're going to do this."

"ARENA CLOSING IN TWO MINUTES."

"I hope you're right, pretty boy." Jo said as she slithered through. "Get your gear and step back; this is not going to go off easy."

"Vasquez! Meija!" One of the military officers called out to two of the closest men. "Ve con ellos! ¡Rápido!"

"ARENA CLOSING IN ONE MINUTE."

As the team stepped back until Jo was happy the military officers carefully threaded their way through the fence as the women had shown them.

"ARENA CLOSING IN THIRTY SECONDS…29…28..27…"

"Do you two speak English?" Morgan asked.

"I do." Meija said, "Vasquez here not so much."

"Okay, these two have experience." Morgan indicated the women. "Sgt. Mason here is in charge. Do what she tells you and we might make it out alive with the kids."

Meija translated and both men nodded. "Si, we understand."

"ARENA CLOSING."

Suddenly a hum they had barely noticed rose in volume to nearly ear splitting levels, and then in pitch until it was almost painful. It felt like a valve was opened somewhere and at some level everything was being sucked toward that fence. They covered their ears and winced as the blue lines glowed too bright and began to widen, making a wall and then…

With a loud boom it began. Lines began to shoot up and across, connecting and reconnecting, forming a grid that arched over the village in a giant dome. And as each box formed in the grid it set up its own glow, filling in and slowly becoming somehow a web that sealed completely.

When the final bang was heard well above their heads the entire village was encased in a dome of pure energy. Through it Spencer could just make out the rest of the team, staring up in awe as they were.

Well, not Jo and not Kat. They were looking at it with a mixture of anger and disgust. "Welcome to the 77th annual Hunger Games." Jo pronounced. "And may the odds be ever in our favor."


	29. Chapter 29

"Okay, we want to head toward the center. It will be somewhere close to there." Jo told them as they hoisted their gear and started walking, Meija translating along. "I doubt that they will have deployed any of their toys at this point but be careful anyway. Booby traps are always a possibility. That said we have thirty minutes to find the kid, so if you have to trade, trade speed over caution."

I should have asked for details, Spencer thought. She spent so little time in the Arenas; in the greater scheme of things I thought it was just one trauma among many. I was so wrong.

"What happens in thirty minutes?" Morgan asked.

"In a traditional Arena they would be loaded in the launch tubes and lifted to the launch platforms. Then they would have to remain on the platforms for a one-minute countdown before starting the game. From the looks of those pictures they've been using different restraints to hold people until they can start the countdown, but the effect is the same." Jo sighed and tightened the waist belt on her pack. "Ideally we'd find where they're holding them and get back to the Arena walls before the end of the opening countdown, but I'm not that hopeful."

"What happens if we don't get back to the wall before the countdown is over?"

"We'll have to fight our way back. They'll deploy booby traps and muttations to try to stop us, and we may have to worry about other combatants as well. That would be a pain in my ass. I'm more worried about the kids during the countdown. Did you teach them the rules, brainless?" She asked Jo.

"I never told them about it." Kat replied quietly. "I didn't see a reason to scare them."

"That was a bad plan."

"What are the rules?" Spencer asked.

"Stay on your platform until the end of the countdown, that's the big one." Jo replied.

"Why?"

"Because they don't disarm the land mines until it's over."

"Land mines?" Morgan asked.

"A few years ago, relatively, this one girl brought a small wooden ball as her district token." Kat replied. "She dropped it during the countdown. They had to use a vacuum to get her into her coffin." She looked over at Morgan. "They made us watch them cleaning her off the platform during math class. There's a reason why I don't like television."

Morgan nodded. "I get that."

"Yeah, so let's get to them before that's a risk, okay?" Jo said.

"Excuse me." Meija spoke up. "What is a muttation?"

"It's an eggcorn, or so my husband says." Kat replied, "A mutant, a bio-engineered monster." She looked over as Jo looked at her. "What? I've been reading."

Meija translated, but the other man sounded unconvinced. "Such things are not possible." He told them.

"Neither is this dome." Jo pointed out. Then she stopped and nodded at the rail of an abandoned truck. "There's one there."

It was a bird.

For a moment Spencer couldn't recognize the species. It had the shape and size and crest of a Steller's jay, but it was black with white splotches on its wings. Where have I seen that before, he thought? It looks so familiar."

Kat stopped and stared at the bird, her face gone to the inscrutable mask she wore when he was highly disturbed, deeply upset. Then she quietly sang four notes in her soft, achingly sweet voice. "La la la la." F-C-B-E.

The bird cocked its head as if listening.

She whistled the notes.

The bird cocked its head the other way.

She whistled again.

It sang them back.

"Some kind of mocking bird?" Morgan asked quietly.

"Shhh." Jo replied. "Listen."

Kat whistled.

The bird sang back.

Another bird fluttered down and sang four notes. Not the same, but related, like he was riffing off the tune.

The first bird sang the original notes to the second.

The second turned his head and sang his version over his shoulder.

And then there were singing birds everywhere, an entire flock of them, on the buildings, on the telephone poles, on the clotheslines and fences. There must have been about fifty of them, all catching the four note tune and passing it back and forth, like jazz musicians building on a riff and making it theirs. It was sweet enough to take your breath away.

Jo turned and looked Kat over. "Welcome home Mockingjay."

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

"Anything Garcia?" There had to be something, Hotch thought, there had to be.

"No, Sir, there's nothing. I can't get their phones, I can't trace the feed, I can't even get a lock on Kat's GPS tracker. That dome is shutting out everything; we're only going to get what they send us."

Damnit!

"Garcia." Rossi spoke up. "Someone has to be controlling this. See if you can find any line running out of here, anything, even a sign of a hard line somewhere it doesn't belong."

"Yes, Sir, I'll see what I can find. I'll get back to you when I have anything. Right now let me work." Garcia rang off.

Hotch looked over at JJ and Will. He wondered if he looked as terrified as they did, as hopeless. This is how you control a nation, he thought. Make you feel helpless to protect the ones you love.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

The clock was ticking. The clock was ticking and they seemed no closer to finding this cornucopia they kept talking about. They even had a plan for when they got there, they just had to find it. They started in the approximate center of the town and started working their way out, but it was one building after another, and there was nothing.

Then Vasquez looked in the window of the church. "¡Ven aquí! Encontré algo!"

They ran to the church and threw open the doors. The pews had been removed, the floor clearly disturbed and replaced with packed earth. A semi-circle of twelve holes ringed the nave. And the altar was piled with supplies and weapons.

Bingo.

"Okay, the children have to be in the basement." Jo said. "If we can find the way down there…." But there was the sound of something mechanical starting, something grinding. "Shit, no time! Okay, we have to get up where they can see us but off the floor."

"The choir loft." Meija pointed. There was a narrow choir loft down one side. It wasn't much, but it would do. They ran over and climbed up the rickety ladder, Meija taking point. "It is undisturbed." He told them, so they followed him on up.

Just as they got into position a klaxon sounded. They watched as the hatches on top of each tube opened. "All right," Jo said. "Here we go."


	30. Chapter 30

"Sir!" Garcia's voice came over the line. "The feed is up! I can see the boys! Sending now!"

They all gathered around the table in the command center the Mexican government had lent them. On the screen the countdown was gone. It had been replaced by a large readout sitting on what appeared to be an altar in the town church. The altar itself was piled with weapons and gear. The pews had been removed and the floor torn up. And in a circle around the pile were children, twelve of them, male and female, older and younger, each standing on a circular platform.

And two of the children were Jack and Henry.

"Why are they just standing there?" Hotch wondered.

"Where are Morgan and Reid?" JJ wanted to know.

"Sir, I'm getting an audio feed." Garcia called out.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

As they watched twelve platforms smoothly rose into position. Standing on each was a child, different ages, sexes, some in school uniforms, and others in gang colors. And right there, right there, were Jack and Henry.

"Jack. Henry." Morgan called down to them. "Don't move!"

Both boys turned to look up at them. They looked so scared, so alone down there. "Derek?" Jack called out.

"Jack, listen to me. Do not move. Just stand there."

The platforms were not large, but still Henry managed to turn to look at them. "Uncle Spencer? Aunt Kat?" God, he looked so young!

"Just stay there Henry! Stay there until we come for you! It's going to be all right just stay!"

"Niños, escuchen, somos la policía. Tienes quedarse! No te muevas! Quédate allí hasta llegamos para tí!"

"Uncle Spencer?"

Even Kat was calling to them. "Just stay there Henry! Just stay!"

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

They could hear the team but not see them. They could see the boys though, and they looked so very, very scared.

"Why aren't they going to them?" JJ demanded.

"I don't know." Hotch replied.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

The time on the pile finally reached zero and a horn sounded. For a moment they all just held their breath. Did they dare trust that the Gamemakers were playing by the rules this time?

One of the older boys looked back at them and then at the pile. "Fuck this." He said and jumped off the platform, running over to see what he could find.

Nothing exploded.

In a flash they were out of the choir loft and down. Morgan and Spencer ran to the boys while Velasquez and Meija gathered up the other children and Kat and Jo ran to the center. It seemed like forever but it was a heartbeat before Henry was safe in his arms. "It's okay. You're okay."

"Uncle Spencer." Henry wrapped his arms around him tight and buried his face in the crook of his shoulder and was just shaking.

"Don't worry; we're going to get you home."

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

"Oh God," JJ breathed.

It seemed like forever, it seemed like a thousand years, but once the timer ran out first one of the older boys moved and then the team was in view and over to the children. Hotch felt himself exhale more air than he could hold as Morgan got his arms around Jack and helped him off that dammed platform, and then Reid had Henry and just like that it was better. Not all right, not at all, but better.

"Well, that's the first goal down." Rossi murmured. "Now what are they doing?"

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"Okay, I want every last one of you to listen hard!" Jo barked out loudly from the altar, where she and Kat were rapidly stuffing bags. If there was any doubt about her role as Sgt. Mason it evaporated right there on that church floor. "First off I want each of you to find your partner. There's someone here you know, you've seen them in town, you've seen them in school, you've seen them on the streets. That person is now your partner, find them right now." With Meija translating the children quickly paired off. "Now we are going to divide these supplies evenly, one set per team. You and your partner have to stick together; it's the only way you're going to make it." As sets of supplies were gathered Kat started handing them off to each team, including weapons. "When you leave here I want you to move carefully and quickly away from the other teams. Find shelter, someplace out of the sun, and hide there. You may have to stay for two or three days so ration your water and food and try to find more water if you can. Water is your new best friend. Stay in your hiding place until the police come for you. And if you see monsters try and hide from them or run from them before you fight them. Understand?"

Most of the children nodded but one of the bigger boys, the one who jumped off the platform first, stepped up. "Bullshit, lady. They told us how this game is played. Only one of us is getting out of here and it's going to be me!" He had grabbed a wicked sharp machete from the pile, now he raised it over the head of the nearest child.

"Hey!" Morgan, Reid and the two soldiers all drew their weapons, but before they could even get a bead an arrow came flying out from the other side of the group. It went straight through the blade of the machete, ripping it from the boy's hand, and taking it along as it embedded itself an inch deep in the adobe wall behind them. Spencer turned to see Katniss with another arrow already nocked and ready to fly.

"Don't translate this." Jo said to Meija. She pulled one of her hatchets from her belt, and got right in the boy's face, pinning him against the wall with her forearm and her weight. "You're right, that's how this game is played. But know this, that woman over there and I have each won, twice and  _then_  we learned how to make war. Now I don't care how old you are or how bad ass you think you are, if you want to play their way I will have no problem making you my sixth game kill. Do you understand?"

He saw something in her eyes and just nodded. "Yeah, sure, I understand."

"Good. Now get your partner and your gear." She backed off and gave him room. "The rest of you come help us pack up."

They all got to work. But even as they were Spencer heard Katniss murmur to Jo. "How much time d'you think before they drive us out of here?"

"Not enough." Jo replied.

Spencer was about to ask what that meant, when he saw a green and gold wasp land on Katniss' bow.


	31. Chapter 31

"Something's wrong."

Hotch came over and looked at the monitor, "Where?"

"Look at Spence." JJ pointed out. "They're suddenly all nerves. Something's wrong."

"Yes, but what?"

* * *

**Inside**

**Spencer**

"Kat," Spencer tried to calmly get his wife's attention. Maybe too calmly, she was instantly alert. "Don't move." She froze just that fast. "I think there's a tracker jacker on your bow."

Kat didn't even stop moving, she stopped breathing.

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**JJ**

"What is a tracker jacker?" JJ demanded.

"Remember when Reid was in the hospital, about five years ago? He supposedly had an allergic reaction to some rare breed of wasp?" Rossi asked her. When she nodded he continued. "That was three of them."

On the list of things JJ wanted to hear that was not one of them. Spence had almost died from that attack. And he was a fully grown man. If Henry was stung…

She didn't want to think about that.

They watched on the monitor as the insect lifted off Kat's bow and then the two of them looked up.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

Spencer followed the wasp with his eyes as it lazily flew up toward the ceiling. The old adobe building had an open beam ceiling, with plenty of nooks and corners to support a wasp nest.

Or rather,  _four_ wasp nests.

"We're out of time, Jo. Morgan. Spencer." Kat was very quiet and very calm. Even from here they could see the golden bugs crawling on the outside of the balls of cellulose much larger than his head. "Take our packs and the boys outside. Meija, you and Velasquez get the kids moving out the door, very quietly and calmly with whatever they have packed."

By now Jo had looked up and seen them. "Isn't that what you dropped on the careers?"

"Yeah, and that's a sprinkler system up there. I think those can be operated remotely."

"Riiight. Time to go."

By the time this conversation was over Spencer had already taken Henry by the hand and walked him to the door. "Wait right there for me, right against that wall where I can see you." Morgan said the same to Jack and then they took position, ready to slam the doors and trap the wasps inside.

"Vamos, niños. Rápidamente y en silencio." Meija was saying to the children as he got them moving out the door.

One of them looked up, causing the others to as well. "Esa es una nido de avispas grande!"

"Sí lo es. No queremos a despertarlos."

They had all the children file past them and then Kat, Jo and Velasquez took up the rear, taking turns to look back to make sure nothing else was lurking. And probably to long for the supplies, Spencer thought, supplies like that might mean life or death.

Then, at the same time Kat did, he saw a drop of water hit the floor.

"Run!" Kat screamed.

They all stampeded for the door, just as the sprinklers went off and a cloud of angry, toxic wasps exploded into the room, a glittering gold cloud of death. They caught Velasquez first, taking him down, burying him under their weight, as he started screaming.

There was nothing they could do. To protect the children they slammed the door right on Jo's heels.

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**JJ**

They watched the soldier die in agony as the wasps took out their irritation on him. Over and over until all that was left was a dried up husk.

JJ heard someone behind her retching.

Please bring my baby back, she thought. Please.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"Meija!" Jo knocked the other soldier on the shoulder, knocking him out of his shock at what had happened. "Meija! You have to translate. Tell the kids it's time to scatter, to find shelter and wait."

After a long moment Meija seemed to pull himself together. He translated and the children ran off in all directions. Meija turned to them. "You have done this before?"

"Yes." Kat said.

"We need to get moving." Jo said. "I'll take point. Keep the kids in the middle."

"In America?" Meija continued as they started heading back the way they came.

"No. Someplace far away. Its better we don't say where." Instinctively Kat picked up a bit of crumbled litter from a windowsill as they walked and let it drift to the ground to gauge the wind.

"They did this to children there?"

"Yes. I was eighteen the first time. How old were you, Jo?" Kat asked.

"Fifteen," the other woman replied shortly.

"Why do they do this?" Meija asked.

"To terrorize the parents," Spencer replied. "To make them feel helpless so they wouldn't fight back against the government."

"Oh." Meija nodded. After a few moments he spoke up again. "They still do this there?"

"Nope," Jo told him. "Eventually the winners grew up and decided enough was enough. So we rallied everyone into an army and put an end to that crap. Well…" She looked over at Kat and grinned. "…Sparky here rallied up an army."

"Yeah," Kat murmured in reply. "I rallied. The rest of you did the actual planning."

"You won then?" Meija clearly wanted to know the rest of the story. And what did you do to the people who did this?"

"Yep," Jo grinned at him in turn, "Built a gallows."

Meija considered a moment and nodded. "Good. So then you two move to America? Asylum? Get married"

"Something like that." Spencer replied. "At least for us," he nodded toward Kat, gave her his best reassuring smile when she looked over in return.

"And you two?" Meija asked Jo and Morgan.

"No."

"No."

"We're starting a pool." Spencer told Meija.

"Ohhh," Meija nodded. "And this is your son?" He indicated Henry, who had yet to let go of Spencer's hand while Jack was sticking to Morgan like he was attached to a tow line.

"My godson, Henry," Spencer squeezed Henry's hand, to get him to look up, even though he didn't smile. "Morgan and I work together; Jack here is the son of one of our teammates."

"Revenge then?"

That had Spencer frowning. "Good question. It's a lot of work for just revenge."

"Hey Sparky," Jo called over to Kat. "Is it me or is it too quiet?"

"Way too quiet." Kat replied.

"Maybe they don't know we're here." Morgan said.

"Gamemakers? Not a chance." Jo pointed to one of the tall light poles that would probably illuminate the entire arena come nightfall. Perched on it were several security cameras. "They're watching our every move. The Mockingjay here makes for fabulous television after all."

"Shut up Mason." Kat replied.

"Well you do Sparky." Jo flashed another grin over her shoulder.

Just then they heard a popping noise, and a white cloud began to rise out of the ground ahead of them.

 


	32. Chapter 32

"What is it?" JJ asked. It was impossible to make out clearly. Something was hampering the camera. "What's happening?"

"I can't tell." Hotch said, far too calmly.

As they watched something drifted in front of the camera, completely obscuring the view.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

Morgan had been taking point. As soon as the leading edge of the cloud reached him he turned and motioned them back, "Tear Gas!"

Crap. "We need to get upwind of it." Spencer remembered how Katniss had dropped the soft leaf littler earlier, a habit of hers to determine the way the wind was blowing, to always stay upwind of prey. "This way," he grabbed Henry's hand and led them quickly across the direction the wind was running, they had a much better chance of getting past it that way.

They did, but it took time. A little too much, by the time they got free of the gas cloud they were in agony. The boys were sobbing from the burns and everyone was coughing. "Water," he gasped out, falling to his knees. "Need water." Kat and Jo had packed their hiking gear, full bladders of fresh water in all four adult packs. Even though the tears were streaming down her face Kat unclipped her hose and offered it to him. "No, my face. My hands." They couldn't drink out of the bladders until they washed the nozzles anyway. "With soap."

"We need to conserve our water." She insisted. "It's all we have."

"Please!"

She gasped but complied, pushing a small bottle of liquid soap into his hands and then squirting enough to wet and rinse them and then his face as well. "Why?" She finally asked.

"Contacts!" The gas was trapped behind them, like acid trying to eat away at his eyes. When he was finally clean enough to not make it any worse he pulled them off and tossed them away, they were ruined now.

"Hold still!" While he had been trying to get his contacts out Morgan and Jo hand been cleaning the nozzles and helping the kids. Now Morgan stepped over, turned his head back with a hand on his forehead and poured fresh water into his eyes, rinsing away the worst of it.

Finally the sobbing slowed and burning abated. Someone pushed something into his hands; Kat had remembered to pack his glasses. He looked over and found that Henry had lost his breakfast and looked kind of woozy, but a granola bar appeared to be helping the situation. "Could be worse," Jo told them. "Last time it was toxic acid." She looked over at Kat, "Mags."

"They wanted us to burn our water." Kat replied. "We lost a good third of it."

"We're not going to need that much." Jo nodded up at the dome. Spencer looked the way she indicated but didn't see any….wait. One square section of the force field was…shimmering.

Interesting.

Just then something squeaked. He caught movement and looked over to see a golden monkey, something like a cross between a Golden Lion tamarin and a Chacma baboon jump onto an abandoned car some distance away. It looked at him and hissed, baring a set of long, ivory fangs.

Then another popped up.

And another, further to the left.

And another.

And another.

"We're surrounded." Jo said, quietly. Spencer whipped around to see that, sure enough, there were monkeys everywhere.

"They're carnivores." Kat murmured. "Look at their teeth."

"We did not need to know that, brainless."

"Are they gonna eat us?" Jack asked.

"Nope," Morgan replied. "How much ammo do you have?" He asked.

"Eighteen rounds? You?" There were well over a dozen monkeys around them now.

"Three mags, thirty nine. Meija?"

"One twenty." Well he was carrying a military rifle, "And another dozen in my sidearm."

"I think I like you Meija." Jo said.

"I still have a dozen, if anyone cares." Kat pointed out, perhaps a little testy.

"Yeah, well, we got enough." Morgan replied.

A monkey hopped up on a car a little ways ahead of them. It…no, clearly a he…was larger than the others, more solid. Now that he was on scene more of them came into the area, and more still. We might not have enough, Spencer thought. "We might want to try slowly backing out of their territory." Given that front, toward the edge of the dome, was filling up with monkeys.

"Good plan." Morgan said, "Everyone back to me."

As they slowly backed away the largest monkey made a sound somewhere between a growl, a cry and a hiss. Slowly they followed the retreating humans, not attacking, just making a large show of force.

Then one got a bit too close to Meija and he flinched on the trigger. A shot rang out and bounced off the golden fur of the nearest monkey. " ¿Qué demonios?"  _What the hell?_

"Hang on." Morgan took aim and shot another monkey. Again the shot bounced off. "Their fur is like armor! We can't shoot them!"

"So how do we get out of here?" Meija asked.

"Hope they let us out." Jo replied.

They kept backing as the monkeys got closer, the largest one both leading and egging them on. And then Kat stopped. She just stopped. "Kat," he called to her very quietly.

"Dominant male," she said too calmly as she unnocked her arrow and slipped it back into her quiver. She was staring at the largest male, he realized, her eyes locked on his, "Troop leader."

Oh no. No. "Kat, you can't!" He said, still quiet but with rising panic under his ribs.

"Yes I can. Get Henry out." She was drawing her bow again, this time one of the rounds with a yellow wrap.

"You don't know that you can penetrate that armor!"

"I'm not aiming for the armor."

"Kat…"

But there was no more talking. She took a deep breath and made a sound that was somewhere between a kiss and a growl and a scream and every bit a challenge.

Spencer swore that the troop leader grinned. The entire troop stopped and turned to watch as he sized her up, his head bobbing and then he returned the challenge.

She threw it right back, her bow still tight.

The troop leader screamed once more, and charged, bounding over cars and debris and even his own troop to get to her.

"Kat." The troop leader was getting closer. "Kat…" The monkey was going to rip out his wife's throat and there was nothing he could do. But he had to try, he had to….he raised his weapon…

Kat fired.

The arrow pierced the troop leader's eye, sank deep into his skull and erupted into a fireball. His dying screams rang off the surrounding buildings.

Terrified at the loss of their leader and the fire the rest of the troop shrieked and fled.

Katniss watched them go, and then she nocked another arrow without drawing the bow, turned and rejoined the group. She stepped past Morgan to take her turn on point. "Now I have eleven."

 


	33. Chapter 33

"Were the notes Sgt. Mason left helpful?" Hotch asked when Rossi rejoined them at the monitors.

"Maybe for Reid," Rossi sighed. "She wrote down what she remembered from five years ago, relative, and on the other side of a war, time as a POW and time as a junkie, there's just not enough there to work with."

"What about the other files they sent?"

"Videos from the games, probably to taunt and demoralize us. In all my years in this business I have never seen anything like that."

That was surprising, especially from Dave. "Bad?"

"I just watched four eighteen year olds gang rape and eviscerate a fifteen year old. Then they left her alive to bleed out slowly. As near as I can tell the entire country watched it live and no one lifted a finger to stop it or save her life. Thankfully one of the other kids went back and put her out of her misery by cutting her throat. And that was just the first hour of one video, after what they called the Bloodbath."

Hotch decided he didn't want to know about the Bloodbath, "They?"

"They have commentators like a sports show. They narrated the rape, even commented on the rapists' technique."

"My god," even after all his years in the BAU he could still be shocked.

"Thankfully it appears they already avoided the Bloodbath portion of the game." Rossi nodded at the monitor. "I'm not certain what the game plan is though."

"We'll just have to wait and find out."

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"What I wouldn't give for a map." Morgan grumbled. He looked over at Spencer. "Tell me your brain is working here?"

Studying geographic profiling and having an eidetic memory tended to turn one into a human GPS. Granted the flight from the tear gas threw him off, but the sun couldn't be changed, could it? "Given that they can't shift the sun around…."

"Yes they can." Kat told him. He just stopped and gaped at her. "Well, they can reflect the angle of the light and project a video image of the sun off the dome. They can also shorten the length of the light and dark parts of the day. You really can't trust any of it."

"So we're lost." Morgan sighed.

"No we're not." Jo replied. "We're going that way." She pointed in one direction.

"How do you know?"

"Well, the building with the tracker jackers is that big white one over there." She pointed, "And that blue building had the gas right next to it, and back that way is the monkeys; so that way." She started walking.

"But why not any other way?"

Jo sighed testily, looked at Kat, gave a sharp nod in Spencer's direction, and then grabbed Morgan around the neck, yanking him down so she could speak directly into his ear. Thus prepared he moved so Kat didn't have to yank him. "We think we can break the dome." She barely whispered. "We did before. We just have to get to the edge."

"Anywhere?"

"We'll know the spot when we find it."

"You have what you need?"

"Two thirds," she patted her Mockingjay bow.

Right, they had a plan. They just didn't want to discuss it because…well, if they were under video surveillance, then audio must be expected. They didn't want the Unsub to know. Meija and Jack were looking at him expectantly. He gave them the traditional thumbs up, there was a plan.

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

"Can you hear them?" Hotch asked JJ.

She was listening with headphones, but the audio quality was that bad, "No, but look at their body language. Kat and Jo have some kind of plan going, they just shared."

"Let's hope it works."

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"So, this way," Jo took point again, choosing a route almost direct for the wall of the dome.

Spencer and Morgan took center, Henry and Jack between them. Meija took rear and Kat stood a little way off, as she had been, her weapon needed more space. "Details?" Morgan asked.

After years in the field they didn't need to be specific. "Some."

"Odds?"

On the one hand, that Mockingjay bow was a remarkable piece of equipment. And Kat did have arrows with enough explosive power to take down something the size and weight of a BlackHawk attack helicopter. And that squiggly patch she had pointed out might be a weak spot, where the energy wasn't thick. But explosives alone might not be enough to disrupt the energy matrix. But she said two-thirds….Spencer heard a mockingjay singing Kat's song and looked up. The bird was perched on one of the tall light poles, fitted with powerful spotlights that would illuminate the dome at night, which probably meant that this was a less-powerful dome and…all of a sudden he realized what they were going to do. "Good, if my wife doesn't kill herself in the process." He looked back at Morgan. "Remember that class you took when we moved in?"

Morgan followed his eyes to the bird, the perch, the bow, "Oh boy."

"Yeah."

"Jo." He called up. "Have I called you crazy yet?"

She looked back at him. "You should have figured that one before I moved in." She laughed and turned back to the way she was moving.

And something exploded.

They immediately took up position around her and the kids in case it was gunfire. When it wasn't repeated they turned to look at the damage. It appeared that she'd hit a monofilament tripwire and triggered a low-tech booby trap. She'd immediately dodged back, but it was too late. Three good sized nails were embedded in her calf. "Son of a bitch!" she growled, clutching her leg in pain. "Leave me here, keep going!"

"What?" Morgan was shocked, "No way!"

"Leave me here." Jo insisted. "I'm dead weight; you can't win with me now."

"Not a chance Johanna! I meant what I said; we are not leaving you behind!" He was already pulling out the first aid supplies.

"Our odds improve with more adults along." Spencer had to point out as he moved to help.

Jo growled at them. "Explain it to them Sparky, please!"

"Don't look at me." Kat had much less emotion going. "I carried Peeta along and he was worse."

"And that is why I call you brainless!"

"Keep calling me that then."

They worked quickly to get the nails out and staunch the bleeding. She needed stitches at least, and the wound was dirty and deep and who knew if she ever had a tetanus shot, but at the moment what could be done?

Kat and Meija were standing guard when a little voice finally, finally spoke up. "Uncle Spencer." It was Henry. He was standing there staring at all that blood. "I'm scared."

"Hey." Kat came over and got down to his level. "It's gonna be okay. You don't have to be scared."

"I want my mom and dad." Henry told her.

"Come here." She said, as she unnocked her arrow and slung her bow. "Let them patch Jo and then we'll get going again." She led him over to some concrete and metal pad sitting next to a building, with Jack trailing after them. "You watch, we'll be home before sunset." She sat on the edge of the pad and pulled him down beside her.

The pad promptly turned, swallowing them both.


	34. Chapter 34

"What happened?" JJ asked, shocked.

"I don't know." Hotch replied.

"Where's Henry!" Her voice was starting to rise in panic.

"I don't know."

"He was right there!"

"I know! JJ…" He took her by the shoulders and turned her from the screen. "We have to trust them. Right now all we can do is watch."

"Oh God," the helpless terror was haunting her eyes. "No wonder they're afraid of screens."

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"What the hell!" Morgan said, shocked, as he quickly finished bandaging Jo's leg.

Spencer didn't say anything. He ran over and looked down the grating that now covered the top of the pad. About three feet in, just out of reach, another metal sheet covered a…hole of some kind. That sheet didn't appear to be locked, but the grate was. "It's an oubliette."

"It's a what?"

"It's an oubliette, a type of cell, usually in a dungeon. It's built like a well, the only way out is at the top." The dammed grate wouldn't budge, "Help!"

They threw all their weight into it, even Jack, but it wouldn't budge. Morgan stopped and looked at it. "Locked, it's just the one pin though." One piece of iron about as thick as Spencer's finger. "Got any explosives?"

"Yeah," Jo told them. "They just went down the hole."

"She's got food and water." Morgan pointed out. "They should be okay until we get back to them."

"Sorry, sweetheart." Jo replied. She gestured to the dome above them. "Beetee's key to get out of here is on Kat's back."

Key. They needed a key. No, Spencer thought, outside of the box. They needed to get through that metal pin. How would they get through that pin? He looked around him, what destroys metal. "Jo, did you guys pack any work gloves?"

"Yeah, a pair in each pack; you have them."

"What are you thinking?" Morgan asked.

"Outside of the box; remember Cy Bradstone?"

"Yeah, he was the guy who burned girl's senses. He used…" Spencer saw Morgan get it as he looked at all the abandoned cars around. "…battery acid. Will that work?"

"It's worth a shot."

* * *

**Katniss**

The fall wasn't that long; the bad part was that she banged her head as they tumbled down into the hole. That and that this trap was built like a funnel, just enough slope to make it difficult to climb, covered in damp moss to make it worse, and into a neck just wide enough for them to stand. All dark, all stone, all damp and now she was dizzy and disoriented. And underground…

"Aunt Kat, what happened?" Henry asked.

We're underground, she thought. We're underground, and it's dark and we're underground and just like my Dad and we're underground and Prim is…Prim is… She reached up and tried to boost herself to the top of the funnel neck. "Spencer! Spencer! SPENCER!" She screamed and screamed as she clawed at the walls, lost in primal panic.

"Aunt Kat! Aunt Kat!"

Wait, who was that? Someone else…someone…."Henry?" Even though there was just room enough to stand next to each other she reached over and pulled him closer. "It's okay; we're going to get out of here. They're going to get us out of here."

"Okay." But he didn't sound okay. "Why are you scared?"

"My Dad landed in a place like this." The bottom of a coal shaft, she thought, probably just like this.

"Did he get out okay?"

Kat was quiet a minute. "He didn't have Jo and Spencer and Morgan out there to get him out."

"Okay."

They huddled together, for a long, quiet moment. Then she noticed something disturbing. She didn't say anything, she didn't want to make it any worse, but after a moment Henry noticed too, "Aunt Kat, my feet are getting wet."

"Yeah, mine too." The flow of water increased at their words, quickly rising over her ankle. Fucking Gamemaker bastards. "Come on. Put this on." She took off her quiver and strapped it around his body, then carefully braced the Mockingjay bow between her hip and the wall. "I want you to try to get on my back. Can you do that?"

"I think so." It was a scramble, and she got kicked a few times, and he was heavy, but she managed to get him up riding her shoulders eventually. The water was up to mid-calf. "Can you reach the top?"

She felt him stretch and strain and she stretched and strained with him. "No. I can't."

"That's okay; they have rope in the packs." The water was up to her knees. "Here, take this." She passed up her bow. "Jo will know what to do with it, we…we can't let it get wet."

"Okay."

Now all they could do was wait. I always knew I would die in the Games somehow, she thought, but Henry can't die too. But Rue died and Prim died and I don't know what I'm going to do.

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

"What are they doing?" JJ's voice was thin with panic as they watched Morgan and Reid getting something out of the cars and pouring it slowly over the grate. "What are they doing?"

"It looks like they're using the acid in the batteries to eat through the lock." Rossi said.

"But won't it land on Henry!?"

"We have to trust them." Hotch replied.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"More." Spencer told Morgan.

It was working; the acid was slowly eating away the metal. Slowly but surely the lock was weakening. If we can get it down to half, he thought, if we can get it down to half we can use leverage to break the pin and we should be good to go.

"This one's tapped." Morgan replied. "We'll need another one."

"Two." Spencer said. "Hurry."

"Why the rush?" Morgan asked. "We're risking dumping this on their heads."

"Do you hear that" Spencer asked.

"No."

"Get down here and listen."

Morgan leaned in. Spencer could see his face as he heard it, the sound of running water.

He hurried.

 


	35. Chapter 35

"They're hurrying." JJ said, her voice crackling with tension, "Really hurrying. What don't we know?"

"Well if we knew that we'd know it." Hotch replied. He could understand her panic, he was only calmed by the fact that Jack was right there, moving and breathing and staying out of the way and close to Jo. He looked up at Rossi came over, "Anything?"

"They tried cutting the main trunk line, but nothing happened to the dome, it must have its own power source. I got them to hook it back up, in case it's powering something in there our people will need. Uh, in case you haven't noticed…" He gestured out the door. Hotch stuck his head out and saw that the area was crawling with military vehicles and personnel. "If anyone asks Jo and Kat were kidnapped along with Jack and Henry, Garcia is already smoothing that over."

"Why?" JJ asked.

"I don't want them lumped in with the rest of the tech." Rossi replied. He looked back over to Hotch. "Once we're done I suspect that all of this is going to disappear into a hangar somewhere. Technically Navarro is still in charge, he's got them leaving us alone until we get our people out of there, but I get the feeling that if this goes much past full dark the Colonel that just showed up is going to get antsy."

"Let's hope they make it out of there before then." Hotch said.

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

"Careful."

It was hot, nasty work. They'd stuffed a wad of rags under the bars to catch the acid as it spilled, so there wouldn't be a puddle on the lid of the oubliette when they opened the inner hatch. After that it was haul over a heavy battery and carefully pour the sludgy toxic waste over the hasp and watch it steam and smoke as the acid ate through the metal millimeters at a time. The spatters were leaving small burns on their arms and the fumes were burning out their eyes and noses despite the bandanas they wore. But it was working, slowly but surely it was working. When that battery was tapped he held Morgan back. "Almost there." He said as he examined the pin. "Want to try it?"

"Not yet." Morgan said. "One more to be sure," he hoisted up the next battery.

This would do it, Spencer thought. This had to do it. They were running out of time.

* * *

**Katniss**

"Are they going to get us out Aunt Kat?" Henry asked, fear breaking his voice.

"I know they are, sweetie. I know it." The water was up over her breasts now, an inexorable climb. Henry was standing on her shoulders, the edges of the funnel too steep for him to climb, but the neck was narrow enough that he should still be able to stand on her body, and with the greater volume of the space for the water to have to fill he should survive.

She'd always known she would die in the Games. It just took four tries for them to manage it, she thought. Well Mockingjays are hard to kill.

"I'm scared." Henry whimpered. A gush of water made it rise higher. "Aunt Kat! My feet are getting wet!"

"Yeah, I know. It's okay. It's going to be okay. We'll be out of here soon." Or you will be, she thought, that's all that matters. The water was up to her neck. "You know, when my sister was scared I used to sing her a song. It always helped her calm down. It helped my friend Rue calm down too. Want to hear it?"

"O…okay."

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow_   
_A bed of grass, a soft green pillow_   
_Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes_   
_And when you awake, the sun will rise._

_Here it's safe, here it's warm_   
_Here the daisies guard you from harm_   
_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true_   
_Here is the place where I love you._

_Deep in the meadow, hidden far away_   
_A cloak of leaves, A moonbeam ray, Forget your woes and let your troubles lay_   
_And when again it's morning, they'll wash away._

_Here it's safe, here it's warm_   
_Here the daisies guard you from every harm_   
_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true_   
_Here is the place where I love you._

She had to lift her chin to get the last chorus out. I'll see Prim again, she thought, and Rue and Mags and everyone else. I'm not afraid. The water crept a little higher…

There was a wash of sunlight down in the hole. "Uncle Spencer! Uncle Morgan!" Henry shrieked.

"Give me your hand!" Spencer called down. He was lighter; Morgan had him by the legs and was lowering him down the hole.

"I can't reach!"

Katniss took a deep breath, grabbed Henry by the ankles, ducked her head under the water to get leverage and pushed up. "Go to your father!" She gasped as she gave him the last few inches he needed to grab hold. A heartbeat later she felt the weight off her shoulders as Spencer pulled him up and he was saved.

He was safe. The Games didn't kill him after all.

And the water closed over her head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics to "Rue's Lullaby" Copyright Susan Collins. No copyright infringement intended.


	36. Chapter 36

"No!"

Just as Spencer hauled Henry to the top of the hole he saw the water close over his wife's head. No, he thought, she cannot die in this place. There is much I have to let them have, they may not have her. "Lower me down!" He cried to Morgan and Meija as soon as Henry was safe in Jo's arms. "Lower me down!"

He was the lightest, there were ropes in the bags, and they quickly helped him over the edge and down the walls of the oubliette. He had just enough reach to lock his hands around his wife's forearms, and was so very grateful to feel her grab hold. Just one second more, he thought, just one second more. "Pull!"

They pulled and hauled and the moss on the sides that had made it too slippery to climb now helped as they pulled her free of the water and then up over the edge. She fell into his arms, gasping, maybe even sobbing. "Where is she!" Kat panted out. "Where is he? Where's Henry?"

"I'm right here!" Henry cried, throwing himself into her arms.

"You're all right! You're all right!" She was checking him over to be sure, but he was, he was fine if a bit damp. She looked up at Spencer with shock and wonder. "You did it! You saved him he didn't die!"

"We did it." Spencer reminded her. "And you didn't die either." She just looked at him in confusion at that and buried herself in his arms again.

After a few moments to recover Jo cleared her throat. "Uhhh, brainless. It's getting on to nightfall. We need to get to the wall and make camp."

Make camp? Spencer was about to ask when Kat pushed the wet hair back from her face, nodding. "Yeah, come on, let's go. Can you walk?" She asked Jo.

Jo's injury had to be painful, but she gritted her teeth and forced her weight onto her injured leg. "I'll manage. Let's get moving."

Thankfully the universe decided to smile on them for once, they weren't that far from the wall of the dome. "Now what?" Morgan asked.

"Now we start walking along the edge until we come up with an idea." Kat told him. Jo was right, Spencer thought, she couldn't lie worth a damn. "Or until we find a good place to camp."

"Okay, which way?'

"Clockwise."

Kat took point this time. She kept looking up at the edge, looking for something. The shimmering, squiggly spots, he realized, and she was computing trajectories and distances as she went. All we have to do is find the right spot. But then how do we get the last piece?

After not too long they found it, a spot some appropriate distance and angle from a shimmering spot with a light pole nearby. "We should camp." Kat said. "Before the kids get too tired to walk. And Jo should get off that leg."

"After we get some firewood." Jo said. "Might as well with no one hunting us. Pretty boy here and I will go this way, Meija why don't you and Jack go that way. Kat, you're good with shelters and Morgan here can help with the heavy lifting."

This better be part of a plan, Spencer thought, because on its own it's really dumb. "Right." He obediently followed Jo clockwise around the dome.

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

"What are they doing?" JJ asked.

"Making camp from the looks of it." Hotch replied. The people running this were helpful, at least. They started switching between cameras, showing each of the three groups, Meija and Jack gathering kindling, Jo and Morgan tipping a car while Henry looked on, Reid and Jo fetching more wood.

"I was hoping they were going to try something." Rossi grumbled. "The US Army is not known for patience."

"Wait a minute." JJ said, disbelief growing in her voice. "What are they doing?"

"Who?" Hotch came over to look.

"Jo and Spencer. What…what are they  _doing_?"

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Spencer**

Jo led them a little ways away, looking around like she was trying to keep her eyes everywhere at once. But then, all of a sudden, she turned, pressed him up against a low wall, and ground her pelvis into his. "What are you doing?!" He asked, quietly enough.

"Have you told her yet?" Jo asked loudly. She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pulled him in, pressing her lips against his. "About us?"

Huh? "Wh…what?" He pulled his head back and tried to disentangle himself. She's lost it, he thought, the stress. Maybe she's hallucinating from the heat.

"I'm going to take that as a no." She leaned in again, locking her hand around his neck and pulling his lips to hers, this time her tongue taking delicate licks against the seam to try to get him to open for him. When that didn't work she tipped her head and mouthed his jaw bone, the sensitive spot under his ear, sucking his lobe in to her hot, busy mouth. "Play along." She whispered right into his ear. "Cameras. Distraction."

Right. I'm sorry Katniss, he thought. Then Jo's mouth was back on his and he kissed her with all the desperation he could muster. Right before her hands went for his zipper.

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

"Oh. My. God." JJ was shocked. Outraged. Verging on deadly. And Hotch had to admit, it was understandable. "They are not…."

No, they were.

From this angle they couldn't really see, but it was clear that Jo was getting right into Reid's pants. And then she was dropping to her knees. And Reid was happily going right along. "When this is over remind me to fire him." Hotch said, far too calmly. It wasn't that Reid might actually be having an affair, it was that Jack's live was at stake and he was…

"The question is not what those two are doing." Rossi said, with genuine calm. "You'll notice that the cameras have stopped rotating. So the question is what are Kat and Morgan doing?"

* * *

**Inside the Arena**

**Morgan**

Kat kept watching Jo and Spencer as they headed out of sight. "This car looks like it could tip over onto its side." She said, as she watched them. "Can we tip it?"

"If we work at it." It was flat in the right places. They put their backs into it, and with no small effort the car in question was over on its side, it's roof facing the dome. "There's a reason for this?"

"Yeah. Hey Henry?" She called to the little boy. "Come over back here. This is going to be camp, all right. Why don't you dig out the tarps we brought and have a granola bar?" But all the while she was steadily watching Spencer and Jo.

At some point they had stopped, and from here Morgan could see an expression a lot like pain cross his friend's face. "What the hell?" Where was Jo?

"Ignore them." She pulled out some heavy gloves and the multi-tool he kept in the kitchen drawer back home and pointed to the top of the nearby light pole. "I need as much conductive wire as you can give me." She said, as she passed the tool over and pulled out an arrow. "And keep it connected to the power source."

"You want hot wire?" She could not be serious.

"Yeah, I want hot wire."

* * *

**Spencer**

If there was one aspect of his relationship with Kat that Spencer had always been pleased with it was their sex life. He had been patient at first, had not even brought it up, knowing that she was recovering from years of trauma and from the de facto loss of her fiancée Peeta when this aspect got trapped here by the paradox. But over time they had grown closer, and they had eventually discussed, and mutually they decided to wait until their wedding day to seal their commitment with the age-old ritual of the first time. Call it weird in this day and age, but it made them both happy, and he was proud to say that other than a brief reaction to one Lila Archer in a swimming pool there had been no one else but his wife.

Until today.

Thankfully Jo was skillful at this sort of thing. She hadn't actually pulled him from his trousers, was fooling the cameras by sucking on her own thumb, but her mouth really was only inches away and there was only the thin cotton of his boxers protecting him and there was a certain rhythmic pressure going on as she mimicked fellatio. In the end he was only human. He just hoped that the expressions crossing his face as he fought off the sensations could be mistaken for passion.

"How are we doing?" She murmured, her hot breath washing across his skin.

He fought off the throbbing that followed and opened his eyes just in time to see Morgan climbing down off the light pole. He groaned in a positive sort of way and nodded like he couldn't help it.

"Then push me away." She murmured again.

Act. Right. This one will be easier. "No, Jo, I can't." He reached down and pushed on her shoulder, covering his fly with his other hand. "Not here, not like this. I won't do this to Kat."

She feigned a sprawl into the dirt. "This may be your last chance." She said with a very feline smile.

He just shook his head and made a show of zipping up. "No." He said again.

She got to her feet, dusted off her hands and knees and turned like she was subbing him. "Your loss." She spotted a couple of shutters lying in a heap beside a wall. "Oh look, firewood." Like it was all so tiresome.

They brought those back to camp only to find that they had used a tipped over car and a tarp to make a shelter. And under it, where no camera could see, was an arrow with a coiled length of wire attached. Here we go, he thought. "I love you." He murmured to Kat when he was close. "Always will."

"Always." She smiled back.

Then Jack and Meija were there with kindling. "I don't think this shelter will help much with sleep. " Meija said. "They are turning the lights on."

* * *

**Outside the Arena**

**Hotch**

Through what looked to be the nearly solid wall of energy they could see hazy circles as the lights started coming on. "They won't be able to sleep." JJ murmured.

"Missing a night's sleep is the least of their worries." Hotch replied. They ducked back in to the trailer just to see Kat pull back on her bow. "What the…?"

The explosion nearly tipped the trailer over.

* * *

**BAU Headquarters  
FBI Building  
Quantico, VA**

**Garcia**

I do not get paid enough for this, Garcia thought.

It wasn't enough that she was trying everything she had to track back the video feed. No, now in at the same time she had to clean up the video they had to make it look like Jo and Kat were already in the Arena when Reid and Morgan and the Mexican soldiers went in after them to keep the military off everyone's back, as well as listen in on what the military was saying in case they decided to get all suspicious and stuff. She could clone herself three times over, and still be busy.

And then she lost the video feed.

And  _then_  her phone started ringing.

"I do not have time for this." She growled through clenched teeth as she tried to re-establish the feed and her trackback program pinged that it found something. "I do not have time for this. I do not have time for this. What!" She snapped as she answered the freaking phone.

_This is a Hiker's Spot with a prerecorded message…._


	37. Chapter 37

It was better this way.

After Kat had blown up the dome in much the same way as she had in the 75th games he had punched the Hiker's Spot she kept on her quiver, sending their location to Garcia. Ten minutes later they had been surrounded by Jeeps and SUV's and everything else that had been handy. He'd had the distinct pleasure of seeing Jack run back to Hotch, and had brought Henry to JJ himself. Both boys were safe and sound, if terrified by their ordeal. But they were receiving therapy, and over the long term would be fine.

While they had been returning the boys Rossi had caught up with Kat and Jo. He'd quickly gotten their stories straight, and hid Kat's Mockingjay bow in the back of the FBI vehicle. When the US Military asked, the plan to blow the dome had been his idea and had been performed with a bow they had found in the church. His credentials as a scientist and an engineer were known to the Military, so they didn't question the story overmuch, and Jo and Kat were allowed to return home, still believed to be civilian college students.

The US Military had indeed made all that technology disappear, right down to the smallest wasp and mockingjay. They had also vanished the men who designed and built it all, their labs and computers along with the men from the current time who had worked with them. Most of those men had not understood what they were doing, and had been placed in ordinary prisons, but the Gamemakers had been brought here, to be kept in solitary for the rest of their lives, until the Military had more questions. The Military had found the Gamemakers under the Arena itself, had spirited them away before the FBI could realize what was going on, and for that, Spencer was quite thankful. Kat and Jo would have killed them on sight and damn the consequences, and those men could not die.

But he did have some questions for them. And he had the clearance and credentials to come here to ask. It was better this way, Spencer thought as they brought Pontius Fossman and shackled him to the seat on the other side of the table, my wife and her friend can't kill him now.

Fossman looked a bit shell shocked by his sudden reversal of fortune, but he was not an unintelligent man. When Spencer showed him the erasable page in his notebook, the page that said that they were being recorded, Fossman nodded with a look of utter understanding. When Spencer showed him the symbol that he had doodled on the front, the crested bird with the arrow in its beak, it had no meaning to the watchers, but to Fossman it immediately established background and baseline. So Spencer could get right to the point in very few words.

It had come to him on the way in here, how they had gotten here, and why. Spence started with confirming his theory, "Clemency?"

Fossman's smile grew brighter. He tapped his nose and pointed back to Spencer.

Now the how made sense, and the why. But the overarching reason, why the Dark Days, why the Games themselves, why the Districting and the placing the Shock Doctrine plan in place, all that still eluded him. "Why all those kids?" He asked Fossman, knowing that the watchers would think of the kids in Mexico, but Fossman would know he meant the Games.

Fossman cocked his head as if confused that Spencer did not know. "The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."

Spencer's blood ran cold. Now he understood.

He rose from his seat and banged to be set free.

* * *

**Gideon's Cabin  
Outside the Shenandoah National Forest**

**Spencer**

"You lost me." Morgan said.

They were all in the cabin, the only place safe from prying eyes, the team along with Jo and Kat, and Spencer was trying to explain his theory. "Okay starting with the how, we already determined that it had to have taken a massive amount of power to send those men back here."

"Yeah, a power plant's worth." Morgan agreed.

"But I'm telling you, the Coalition had the power plants under control." Jo insisted. "They didn't go that way."

"Not all the power plants." Spencer brought a map up on the board he had acquired for tonight. "Based on the description of Thirteen you both supplied, that it had a massive underground system even from the original shock, that it was an area known for graphite mining, and that it had access to both nuclear materials and nuclear weaponry the most likely location would be Toronto, Canada. The PATH system is a 17 mile long web of tunnels, connecting 4 million square feet living and work spaces under the city, designed to keep the city running in case of massive blizzards."

"Or aerial bombardment," Rossi nodded.

"In addition Eastern Ontario is the only place in North American where graphite is currently mined."

"Does Canada have a nuclear arsenal?" Hotch asked.

"No, but both the US and the UK have based missiles there at different times." Spencer replied. "It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to have been some there that could be captured by the Canadian military. And there are four nuclear power plants on the shores of Lake Ontario, all of which would have been easily accessible from Toronto and any one of which would have provided enough power to open a time hole."

"And Thirteen wasn't part of the Coalition." Jo admitted. "They went back to being their own country almost immediately after the war, so we weren't watching their power facilities. But why would they do this?"

"Not them," Spencer replied, "Alma Coin. Probably as soon as she realized what technology they had captured from Snow."

"But why?"

In response Spencer looked over at Kat. "Remember how I planted that paper to help Peeta?"

Understanding dawned on Kat's face, immediately followed by bone deep anger. "First causes. Something has to be brought into the world in order to be found later. She sent them back to get the Games on record."

"Of course," JJ groaned. "Every weapon and tactic they used is being recorded in a military database somewhere."

"And when this other group takes over the government they'll find it." Rossi nodded. "And when the time comes they'll use it."

"But why Coin?" Morgan asked. "I thought she was one of the good guys."

"She was power hungry." Jo told him. "The Rebellion put her into power. We Rebelled because of the Games. No Games, no power. She was securing her own position." She turned back to Spencer. "And Fossman and his friends went along with it to avoid the gallows. Hell, Coin would have been dictator for life had she not crossed Ol' Sparky here."

"Okay, it all fits." Morgan nodded. "But how do we stop it?"

"By figuring out what started it." Hotch replied. "Who starts the coup? What brings them together?"

"Theocratic Dominionisim," Spencer replied.

"Theocrat," Rossi muttered, clearly thinking.

"Theocratic Dominionisim represents one of the most extreme forms of Fundamentalist Christianity thought found in the U.S. Its followers are attempting to convert the laws of United States so that they match those of the Hebrew Scriptures. " Spencer warmed into lecture mode. "They intend to facilitate this by using the freedom of religion in the US to train a generation of children in private Christian religious schools or at home using curriculum provided by the movement. In addition they follow what's known as the Quiverfull philosophy, encouraging families to have as many children as physically possible. Numbers of children in the double digits is not unknown causing an almost geometric increase in followers over the decades. Later, their graduates will be charged with the responsibility of creating a new Bible-based political, religious and social order.

One of the first tasks of this order will be to eliminate religious choice and freedom. Their eventual goal is to achieve the "Kingdom of God" in which much of the world is converted to Christianity. When the movement began back in the 1970's they believed that the power of God's word would bring about this conversion peacefully. However successive generations have been increasingly looking to the use of military tactics to force conversion of the legal system."

"Insert Shock Doctrine here." Morgan muttered


	38. Chapter 38

**Gideon's Cabin  
Outside the Shenandoah National Forest**

**Spencer**

Spencer continued. "All religious organizations, congregations etc. other than strictly fundamentalist Christianity would be suppressed. Nonconforming evangelical, main line and liberal Christian religious institutions would no longer be allowed to hold services, organize, proselytize, and so on and society would revert to the laws and punishments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Any person who advocated or practiced other religious beliefs outside of their home would be tried for idolatry and executed if found guilty. Blasphemy, adultery and homosexual behavior would be criminalized; those found guilty would also be executed."

"Yeah, but homosexuality was allowed." Kat pointed out. "Look at what happened to Finnick."

"Only in the Capitol, brainless," Jo replied. "It was a hundred lashes and twenty-four hours in the stocks if you were caught in the Districts. That was capital punishment more often than not."

"So they could get away with it but the rest of us couldn't?" JJ asked. "How does that work?"

"Dominionisim seems to be supported by a combination of the Prosperity Gospel and Calvinism." Spencer replied. "In the short form the Prosperity Gospel preaches that that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians. The doctrine teaches that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth. Its proponents teach that the doctrine is an aspect of the path to Christian dominion over society, arguing that God's promise of dominion to Israel applies to Christians today, a teaching that falls right in line with the Dominionisim from the Seventies.

The aspect of Calvinism that most applies is the teaching of Unconditional Election. In Calvinist theology, election is considered to be one aspect of predestination in which God selects certain individuals to be saved. Those elected receive mercy, while those not elected, the reprobates, receive justice without condition. This unconditional election hinged upon the supreme basic belief in the sovereignty of God, it is God's choice to save people regardless of their sin or any condition. This basically means, God's act of saving is not based on what man can do or choose to will, but man is loved by God without any conditions or man's action or deeds but solely by God's grace, thus unconditional election.

The end result is a belief that teaches them that God rewards his Chosen with wealth and power here on earth and punished the non-elect, the Reprobates, with poverty and subjugation. Anything man can do to further either status is doing the work of the Lord, while trying to alleviate poverty and misery is an attempt to thwart God's will."

"Well doesn't that just sound familiar!" Jo grinned. She looked over at Kat. "Guess that makes us Reprobates."

"I guess." Kat replied. "It certainly explains how they treated the Districts."

"So we'd be looking for people who are members of churches who follow that philosophy who are trying to get into positions of power in the government." Hotch said. "Any idea how many we're talking about here?"

"I was able to track the writings promoting this philosophy back to a handful of specific writers. From there I was able to connect influential followers and the churches, seminaries, think tanks and advisory groups that they belong to, and the cross-reference that with political, business and military leaders who also belong to the same groups."

"Meaning they share a common philosophy." Rossi agreed. "And they have lots of opportunities to share ideas. OK, lay it on us."

Spencer did.

There were a lot of names on the board.

A  _lot_  of names.

"That is a lot of money and power." JJ groaned.

"Yeah," Morgan pointed to one name. "Didn't that one run for President?"

"Not only that one." Hotch muttered. "There are at least two more. And I think this one is the commandant at a military academy." He looked over at Spencer. "You're saying we're not going to stop this."

"We couldn't if we wanted to." Spencer sighed. "Everything is in place; all that's left is the shock."

"So there's nothing we can do." Hotch was too quiet. Spencer could tell he was thinking of Jack and Henry.

"Maybe not," Rossi replied.

"What are you thinking?" Hotch asked.

"First off, if Reid is right, and he probably is, then the rest of the world is more or less safe. From what I know about this movement it hasn't moved much past the US."

"They're trying to make inroads into Canada and the UK, but in the more secularized nations they just can't get much of a foothold." Spencer agreed. "People are too…happy to respond to their fear tactics."

"So in the short term I suggest we contact Emily." Rossi told Hotch and JJ. "This isn't going to happen tomorrow. Even if the hurricane was already brewing we'd have some warning. She can offer safe haven, and perhaps get the boys into good universities in the UK, giving them connections of their own over there."

"That's a good idea." JJ nodded. "At least our family will be safe."

"Yeah, but what about all the other families?" Kat asked.

"I hate to agree with Jason but sometimes a profile really is the greatest weapon we have, because we can respond. We know what they're going to do, so we counter it. This whole thing is an idea." Rossi pointed out, "A concept, a thought, a theology. You can only fight ideas with other ideas, better ones. We need to make sure that the ideas that built this country, freedom, equality, democracy, everything they put down in the Declaration and the Constitution are not wiped away."

"So how do you send an idea forward in time?" JJ asked.

"The same way Coin is sending the idea of the Games forward in time." Spencer replied after a moment of thinking very hard and very fast. "The same way I sent forward the idea that helped Peeta. Stick it in the time stream and let it travel at the speed of time until it gets to where it needs to be."

"Okay, but we need a carrier." Morgan pointed out. "You used a scientific journal, Coin is using the military databases, what can we use that can't be erased when they go looking?"

Spencer thought again. "Historically the ideas that lasted the longest were the tales from the oral traditions."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning our best carriers are Jack and Henry." Spencer told them. "What we teach them is important they teach their children and so on down the line."

"A lot of parents are teaching these things to their children." Rossi pointed out.

"Yes, but they don't know how important it is, how specific they have to be." Spencer replied. "We do."

"Are Jack and Henry going to be enough?"

Spencer was pondering that when JJ spoke up. "Well Will and I have been discussing another one." She looked over at Hotch. "You ready to make any decisions with Beth yet?"

Hotch stammered a bit. "Um, I don't know." He admitted. "But I think I'm going to be thinking about it a lot harder now."

"I'm too old." Rossi informed them. "But I will play the doting Grandfather to any new carriers that come along."

Morgan caught Jo's smile. "Why are you looking at me?" Then he caught Garcia's. "Why are you two looking at me?"

Spencer looked over at Kat and held his breath. He could tell she was thinking….

"We got Henry and Jack out." She said at last. "We kept them safe."

"Yes we did."

"We could do it again if we had to."

"Probably."

"And that test…"

"Came back all right." He was not carrying schizophrenia. Or at least the odds were in his favor.

Kat thought a moment more. "All right then. We'll do it."

Garcia beamed. "Yes! Baby Reid!"

And for a moment the future was very bright indeed.


	39. Chapter 39

**Epilogue**

**House #2**   
**Victor's Village**   
**District 4**   
**Panem**

**Mags**

It was almost time. She could hear the sounds of people approaching.

For one last time she had opened her father's trunk, had gone into the secret compartment, had brought out the journals. After this they would either be the most important documents in the country or never be seen again. I have done what I could, she thought as she looked at the ancient picture of a very unusual family, I have done my best to live up to my oath; I have spread what I learned as far as I could reach. Now it is up to them.

She tore one page from the journal and removed the ancient picture and put the rest away. These she would destroy now, this picture and this page with the symbol of the crested bird with the arrow in its beak, this page somehow drawn hundreds of years before a young girl wore it into the Arena. This one had served its purpose. The Mockingjay was here at last. She had recognized her from her picture the moment she volunteered.

Her nephew stepped into the room. She had never born her own children; it had proved impossible after the injuries she suffered in her own Games, and so she had taught her nephew as she and her sister had been taught. She had taught her nephew and later his love, so the knowledge would be passed down to her children, and never forgotten. Now the noontime light glinted off his bronze hair, shadowed the face so like his distant ancestor. He was strong where his ancestor had been slender, had eyes of sea green where his ancestor had hazel, but the face, the bones, those had passed down to mark each man in their family generation after generation, the pretty ones, the keepers of the truth through time. "It's time to go Mags." Her nephew Finnick said to her. "One last Reaping Day."

Margaret Reid stood up, stepped to the stove, and tossed the page and the picture into the fire. Then she stepped out to meet the day.

 


End file.
